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Methods to distinguish crops grown on synthetic fertilisation regimes and organic fertilisation regimes have used nitrogen and oxygen stable isotopes or metabolomics to authenticate growing practices. This research look at the metabolites from tomatoes grown on synthetic and organic fertiliser regimes with synthetic and natural crop protection substances. Using LC-HRMS, the metabolite profile revealed the presence of a compound later identified as gerberin. The levels of gerberin correlated negatively with the presence of synthetic fertilisers, and therefore could be used a biomarker for distinguishing agricultural practices and verifying organic production. 

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There have been an increasing number of cases of substitution of organic produce by conventially grown produce driving the need for robust methods to authenticate organically grown produce. Metabolomics to distinguish organic produce from conventially grown produce has been used for some time. This review examines the latest applications, advantages, challenges and future perspectives of HRMS based targeted and untargeted metabolomics for discrimination between organic and conventional crops. It concludes that data from combined techniques, such as untargeted and targeted metabolomics or metabolomics and stable isotope analysis, can improve the robustness of discriminative models, but they require further validation.

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The main authenticity issues associated with EVOO’s quality involve the organoleptic properties (EVOO or defective), mislabelling of production type (organic or conventional), variety and geographical origin, and adulteration. Greek researchers have reviewed the various "omics" (mainly genomics and metabolomics) using HRMS with various chemometric tools presenting the various workflows to verify critical aspects of olive oil authenticity.

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