An apparatus for classifying a food item of organic or irregular structure includes an image capture unit, a data input unit, and a data output unit. An evaluation unit is connected to said image capture unit, to said data input unit and to said data output unit. The image capture unit captures the food item as optical data and provides the optical data in transmittable form for transmission to the evaluation unit. The evaluation unit extracts feature values of the food item from the optical data. The feature values are combined to form a feature value tuple for the food item. The feature value tuple is automatically assignable to a feature value tuple range. The feature value tuple range is formed by one or more feature value tuples. The feature value tuple range is assigned a class. The data input unit is used to perform an assignment of the class to the feature value tuple range.