Abstract: Food color is one of the important evaluation indicators of food quality and has an important influence on the commodity value of food. Food color can characterize the quality characteristics of food, indicate the maturity stage and problems that occur during processing and storage, and will also affect consumers' choices. Therefore, the detection of food color is of great significance. Food color can achieve non-destructive testing and automated testing, which is in line with the development direction of future testing technology. Therefore, here is a review of relevant domestic and foreign research,which analyzes the perception of food color, and introduces the color representation system. At the same time, the review summarizes the application of colorimeter and computer vision technology, and analyzes their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, this paper makes predictions and prospects of food color detection to provide theoretical support for the development of food detecting technology.