Under EU legislation, raw beef sold chilled, frozen or minced has to declare the country/countries where the animal was born, reared, slaughtered and butchered. Therefore, developing methods to verify the origin of beef is important both to enforce the legislation and prevent fraud. This study was undertaken and funded as part of the EU Project TRACE. Two hundred and twenty seven samples of authentic beef were collected from 13 regions in 8 European countries, and their hydrogen (2H/1H), carbon (13C/12C), nitrogen (15N/14N), and sulphur (34S/32S) isotope ratios determined. The results show the potential of this technique to detect clustering of samples due to specific environmental conditions in the areas where the beef cattle were reared. In particular, they highlighted statistical differences between coastal and inland regions, production sites at different latitudes, regions with different geology, and different farming systems related to whether the animals were consuming primarily C3 - or C4-based diets or a mixed one.
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