Themed collection Detecting food authenticity and integrity

Welcome to this joint Analyst and Analytical Methods themed collection on detecting food authenticity and integrity. Our Guest Editors for the collection, David I. Ellis and Royston Goodacre, discuss the work showcased.

Whole genome comparisons provide a quantitative, objective basis for taxonomic classification of bacterial pathogens important to food security.

One of the main food risks gaining attention from industry, governments, and standards-setting organizations is fraud conducted for economic gain by food producers, manufacturers, processors, distributors, or retailers.

The main food quality traits of interest using non-invasive sensing techniques are sensory characteristics, chemical composition, physicochemical properties, health-protecting properties, nutritional characteristics and safety. A wide range of non-invasive sensing techniques, from optical, acoustical, electrical, to nuclear magnetic, X-ray, biosensor, microwave and terahertz, are organized according to physical principle.

A review of measurement issues associated with quantitative molecular analysis of complex food matrices for the detection of food fraud.

Food allergy is an increasing problem. If we fail to realise the promise of current risk assessment and risk management of food allergens through lack of ability to measure them reproducibly and with traceability to an international unit of measurement, the analytical community will have failed a significant societal challenge.

Major food adulteration and contamination events occur with alarming regularity and are known to be episodic, with the question being not if but when another large-scale food safety/integrity incident will occur.

Orange juice is a hugely popular, widely consumed, and high price commodity typically traded in a concentrate form making it highly susceptible to adulteration.

Identification of processing-stable targets provides important validation when developing targeted mass spectrometry methods for quantifying peanut allergens.

Over the past years, the application of electronic nose devices has been investigated as a potential tool for assessing food freshness.

Adulteration of high quality food products with sub-standard and cheaper grades is a world-wide problem taxing the global economy.

A 6-plex mycotoxin assay was developed on a portable nanostructured iSPR and compared with a benchmark double 3-plex SPR assay.

Reproducibility standard deviations from collaborative trials and from proficiency tests in the food analysis sector are compared and found to be closely similar over a wide range of mass fractions.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of a portable FT-IR spectrometer equipped with a 5-bounce heated ZnSe crystal to develop classification methods for the authentication of potato chip frying oils and to generate prediction models for monitoring oil quality parameters for real-time and field-based applications.

A simple, solvent-free extraction method for DNA facilitates the analysis for genetically modified organisms.

This study is focused on the rapid differentiation of multiple Campylobacter species down to sub-species level, which may provide critical information and knowledge of risk factors, virulence, and distribution of these major foodborne pathogens.

A novel silica coated paper substrate has been developed, which demonstrated a high capacity for direct analysis of pesticides in paper spray mass spectrometry.

Simple modifications in classical methods for detection of milk adulteration were validated with significant performance improvement.

A novel method was developed to detect harmful colours and dyes, in spices and other edible foodstuffs.

A new molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP)-chemiluminescence (CL) method has been developed for the detection of ethopabate (ETP) residues in chicken muscle.

A liquid chromatography-ion trap-time of flight tandem mass spectrometric assay coupled with accelerated solvent extraction was developed to identify and quantify six heterocyclic aromatic amines.

Standard curves of the carbendazim, imazalil and thiabendazole immunoassays in a white wine matrix and the IC₅₀ values for the three immunoassays.

An immunogen consisting of Salmonella lipopolysaccharide and bovine serum albumin was prepared by periodate oxidation.

Figure illustrating the basic processing steps required to identify and quantify potential horse meat adulteration.

A new protocol for HMF proficiency test assessment is suggested by combining all spectrophotometric and HPLC data and applying Horwitz.

Pork adulteration in minced beef was detected for the first time using a hyperspectral imaging (HIS) technique.

An in situ SERS method was developed to detect insecticides on plant surfaces.

Herein, we developed a novel method which integrated two gold nanoparticle (Au NP) based techniques, colorimetric and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic (SERS) analyses, for rapid screening and validation of melamine in milk.

An indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ic-ELISA) was developed based on a sensitive and specific monoclonal antibody (mAb) against natamycin (Nata) for Nata detection in milk, juice, yoghurt, and cheese samples.

The authentication of transgenic and non-transgenic soybean oils was performed by using UV spectroscopy and PLS-DA.