MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry has been the technique of choice in many applications of food authentication because of requiring simple pretreatments even with complex samples, its ease of use, and speed in giving results. This review discusses the advantages of using MALDI-TOF, and examines its published application to authenticating milk and dairy products, oils, meat, fish and seafood, fruits and vegetables, truffles, and even insect proteins.
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AOAC International's Food Authenticity Task Force has developed standard method performance requirements (SMPR) for targeted and non-targeted food authenticity methods. SMPR set minimum performance criteria that food authenticity testing methods for milk, honey and olive oil need to fulfil.
Further information was provided in a recent free-of-charge webinar, which can be viewed on registration.
Michele Suman, Head of Food Safety and Authenticity Research at Barilla Spa, in Parma discusses the latest challenges and innovations effecting the industry in an interview with New Food's editor. He will be elaborating the use and validation of non-targeted methods at next year's Food Integrity Conference in March in Twickenham, London, much of which was developed in his work in the EU Project FoodIntegrity.
Read the article here
The EU Project FoodIntegrity has produced a short video to indicate the challenges associated with moving from targeted to non-targeted systems in food fraud testing, such as a lack of guidelines and legislation. It provides helpful recommendations to address some of these common difficulties.
Watch the video here.
In this scientific opinion, many aspects relating to the role of non-targeted spectroscopy based methods for food fraud detection are considered: (i) a review of the current non-targeted spectroscopic methods to include the general differences with targeted techniques; (ii) overview of in-house validation procedures including samples, data processing and chemometric techniques with a view to recommending a harmonised procedure; (iii) quality assessments including QC samples, ring trials and reference materials; (iv) use of “big data” including recording, validation, sharing and joint usage of databases. The spectroscopic methods considered are traditional vibrational spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging and NMR. Conclusions of this opinion indicate that the key challenges faced by the research and routine testing communities include: a lack of guidelines and legislation governing both the development and validation of non-targeted methodologies, no common definition of terms, difficulty in obtaining authentic samples with full traceability for model building; the lack of a single chemometric modelling software that offers all the algorithms required by developers.
Read the full paper at: scientific opinion on non-targeted methods
Are you interested in the development and validation of non-targeted methods for adulteration of food ingredients or dietary supplements? If so, USP invites your feedback on the proposed ‘Guidance on Developing Non-Targeted Methods for Adulteration Detection.’ This draft guidance is intended to provide users in supply chain management with information that can be applied to testing and authentication of raw materials. Deadline for comments is 31 March 2017.
To learn more and submit comments visit: USP Guidance on Non-Targeted Methods
