Chapter 13 - Organic electronic nose applied to food traceability, adulteration, and authenticity

Abstract

The assessment of food authenticity has become very important in recent years, mainly due to the problem of adulteration that occurs regularly, which makes necessary new tools for checking the food quality, before and after processing. In addition, food traceability is important to have knowledge of the food origin and the high added value, which implies finding more accurate analysis methods to detect and quantify specific compounds. The challenge for continuous monitoring, driven efforts in the research and development of analytical techniques that allow rapid detection of food authenticity, since the volatile substances, that can be used as target molecules in studies, differ from one product to another. In this sense, the electronic nose appears as a promising tool to address these issues, because it can detect and distinguish simple and multicomplex odors simultaneously. The electronic nose can be used to detect levels of adulteration in foods or different concentrations of specific volatile compounds. In addition, being used in food traceability classifying the product according to geographical origin, and used in the food quality assessment of the freshness associated with chemometric analysis. In this chapter, it will be discussed how the electronic nose can assist in the detection and quantification, of adulteration, authenticity, and traceability of foods of animal and vegetable origin.