Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Aug 6;9(8):1069.
doi: 10.3390/foods9081069.

Fraud in Animal Origin Food Products: Advances in Emerging Spectroscopic Detection Methods over the Past Five Years

Affiliations
Review

Fraud in Animal Origin Food Products: Advances in Emerging Spectroscopic Detection Methods over the Past Five Years

Abdo Hassoun et al. Foods. .

Abstract

Animal origin food products, including fish and seafood, meat and poultry, milk and dairy foods, and other related products play significant roles in human nutrition. However, fraud in this food sector frequently occurs, leading to negative economic impacts on consumers and potential risks to public health and the environment. Therefore, the development of analytical techniques that can rapidly detect fraud and verify the authenticity of such products is of paramount importance. Traditionally, a wide variety of targeted approaches, such as chemical, chromatographic, molecular, and protein-based techniques, among others, have been frequently used to identify animal species, production methods, provenance, and processing of food products. Although these conventional methods are accurate and reliable, they are destructive, time-consuming, and can only be employed at the laboratory scale. On the contrary, alternative methods based mainly on spectroscopy have emerged in recent years as invaluable tools to overcome most of the limitations associated with traditional measurements. The number of scientific studies reporting on various authenticity issues investigated by vibrational spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and fluorescence spectroscopy has increased substantially over the past few years, indicating the tremendous potential of these techniques in the fight against food fraud. It is the aim of the present manuscript to review the state-of-the-art research advances since 2015 regarding the use of analytical methods applied to detect fraud in food products of animal origin, with particular attention paid to spectroscopic measurements coupled with chemometric analysis. The opportunities and challenges surrounding the use of spectroscopic techniques and possible future directions will also be discussed.

Keywords: authentication; authenticity; chemometric; fish; honey; meat; milk; origin; species; spectroscopy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Most reported authenticity issues in food products of animal origin.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Temporal evolution of published work on the authenticity of different categories of food products of animal origin during the last decade (a) and publications distributed between the different food categories (b).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Temporal evolution of published work on the authenticity of different categories of food products of animal origin during the last decade (a) and publications distributed between the different food categories (b).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Numbers of published works related to food authenticity (blue bars) and use of spectroscopic techniques in relation to food authenticity (red line) (a). Numbers of citations including the words authenticity or authentication and spectroscopy (b) since 2010. Data obtained from Scopus database on 25 May 2020.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Danezis G.P., Tsagkaris A.S., Camin F., Brusic V., Georgiou C.A. Food authentication: Techniques, trends & emerging approaches. TrAC-Trends Anal. Chem. 2016;85:123–132. doi: 10.1016/j.trac.2016.02.026. - DOI
    1. McGrath T.F., Haughey S.A., Patterson J., Fauhl-Hassek C., Donarski J., Alewijn M., van Ruth S., Elliott C.T. What are the scientific challenges in moving from targeted to non-targeted methods for food fraud testing and how can they be addressed?—Spectroscopy case study. Trends Food Sci. Technol. 2018;76:38–55. doi: 10.1016/j.tifs.2018.04.001. - DOI
    1. Delpiani G., Delpiani S.M., Deli Antoni M.Y., Covatti Ale M., Fischer L., Lucifora L.O., Díaz de Astarloa J.M. Are we sure we eat what we buy? Fish mislabelling in Buenos Aires province, the largest sea food market in Argentina. Fish. Res. 2020;221:105373. doi: 10.1016/j.fishres.2019.105373. - DOI
    1. Sotelo C.G., Velasco A., Perez-Martin R.I., Kappel K., Schröder U., Verrez-Bagnis V., Jérôme M., Mendes R., Silva H., Mariani S., et al. Tuna labels matter in Europe: Mislabelling rates in different tuna products. PLoS ONE. 2018;13:1–12. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196641. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cawthorn D.M., Baillie C., Mariani S. Generic names and mislabeling conceal high species diversity in global fisheries markets. Conserv. Lett. 2018;11:1–12. doi: 10.1111/conl.12573. - DOI