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Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations

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A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Analytical Methods".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 June 2024 | Viewed by 11457

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Hongyan Liu

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Guest Editor

Research Center for Plants and Human Health, Institute of Urban Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Agricultural Science and Technology Center, Chengdu 610213, China
Interests: food authentication; polyphenol; MS-based metabolomics; functional food; chemometrics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Hongtao Lei

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Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Food Quality and Safety/National-Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Machining and Safety of Livestock and Poultry Products, College of Food Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Interests: food authenticity; biosensor; chemometrics; food safety; food analysis; immunoassay; antibody engineering; hapten design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Boli Guo

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Guest Editor

1. Institute of Agro-Products Processing Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China
2. Key Laboratory of Agro-Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing, China
Interests: cereal storage; cereal processing; quality control; cereal geographical traceability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Ren-You Gan

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Guest Editor

Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI), Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), 30 Medical Drive, Singapore 117609, Singapore
Interests: phytochemicals; probiotics; prebiotics; gut microbiota; nutrition; functional food
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the development of a globalized food market, food fraud has become a crucial issue over the world. Adulteration, substitution, and the deliberately incorrect labeling of species and geographical origins of food are considered the main cases of food fraud. Some unscrupulous traders replace special local products with inferior or counterfeit products, substitute labeled food species with others, or extend the shelf life of food by using banned chemicals for economic profit, which can pose a great threat to human health.

Therefore, advanced analytical tools are needed as scientific support against food fraud. Food authentication involves procedures to determine whether the product complies with its labeling, and whether it conforms to the legal standards and regulations that govern its consumption. The combination of appropriate techniques and statistic methods are considered to be powerful tools for identifying cases of food fraud.

This Special Issue aims to bring together the most recent research advances associated with the latest techniques and methods for identifying food fraud. We encourage the submissions of original research articles, perspectives, opinion articles, and reviews that focus on, but are not limited to, the following potential topics: Food fraud, stable isotopic ratios/elements, targeted and untargeted omics (LC-MS, GC-MS, etc.), spectroscopy (NIR, MIR, etc.), genetic analyses, and chemometrics/statistic methods.

Dr. Hongyan Liu
Prof. Dr. Hongtao Lei
Prof. Dr. Boli Guo
Dr. Ren-You Gan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

geographical origin
food fraud
food adulteration
fingerprints
stable isotopic ratios
spectroscopy
omics

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 1559 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effects of Geographical Origin and Tree Age on the Stable Isotopes and Multi-Elements of Pu-erh Tea

by Ming-Ming Chen, Qiu-Hong Liao, Li-Li Qian, Hai-Dan Zou, Yan-Long Li, Yan Song, Yu Xia, Yi Liu, Hong-Yan Liu and Ze-Long Liu

Foods 2024, 13(3), 473; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13030473 - 02 Feb 2024

Viewed by 685

Abstract

Pu-erh tea is a famous tea worldwide, and identification of the geographical origin of Pu-erh tea can not only protect manufacture’s interests, but also boost consumers’ confidence. However, tree age may also influence the fingerprints of Pu-erh tea. In order to study the effects of the geographical origin and tree age on the interactions of stable isotopes and multi-elements of Pu-erh tea, 53 Pu-erh tea leaves with three different age stages from three different areas in Yunnan were collected in 2023. The δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N values and 25 elements were determined and analyzed. The results showed that δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, Mg, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, Rb, Sr, Y, La, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu had significant differences among different geographical origins (p < 0.05). Mn content was significantly influenced by region and tree age interaction. Based on multi-way analysis of variance, principal component analysis and step-wised discriminant analysis, 24 parameters were found to be closely related to the geographical origin rather than tree age, and the geographical origin of Pu-erh tea can be 100.0% discriminated in cross-validation with six parameters (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, Mn, Mg, La, and Tb). The study could provide references for the establishment of a database for the traceability of Pu-erh tea, and even the identification of tea sample regions with different tree ages. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations)

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17 pages, 7905 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Traceability Research on Dendrobium devonianum Based on SWATHtoMRM

by Tao Lin, Xinglian Chen, Lijuan Du, Jing Wang, Zhengxu Hu, Long Cheng, Zhenhuan Liu and Hongcheng Liu

Foods 2023, 12(19), 3608; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12193608 - 28 Sep 2023

Viewed by 876

Abstract

SWATHtoMRM technology was used in this experiment to further identify and trace the sources of Dendrobium devonianum and Dendrobium officinale produced in the same area using TOF and MS-MRM. After the conversion of the R package of SWATHtoMRM, 191 MRM pairs of positive ions and 96 pairs of negative ions were obtained. Dendrobium devonianum and Dendrobium officinale can be separated very well using the PCA and PLS-DA analysis of MRM ion pairs; this shows that there are obvious differences in chemical composition between Dendrobium devonianum and Dendrobium officinale, which clearly proves that the pseudotargeted metabolomics method based on SWATHtoMRM can be used for traceability identification research. A total of 146 characteristic compounds were obtained, with 20 characteristic compounds in Dendrobium devonianum. The enrichment pathways of the characteristic compounds were mainly concentrated in lipids and atherosclerosis, chagas disease, fluid shear stress and atherosclerosis, proteoglycans in cancer, the IL-17 signaling pathway, the sphingolipid signaling pathway, diabetic cardiomyopathy, arginine and proline metabolism, etc., among which the lipid and atherosclerosis pathways were more enriched, and 11 characteristic compounds affected the expression levels of IL-1, TNFα, CD36, IL-1β, etc. These can be used as a reference for research on variety improvement and active substance accumulation in Dendrobium devonianum and Dendrobium officinale. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations)

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8 pages, 756 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Cuttlefish Species Authentication: Advancing Label Control through Near-Infrared Spectroscopy as Rapid, Eco-Friendly, and Robust Approach

by Sarah Currò, Stefania Balzan, Enrico Novelli and Luca Fasolato

Foods 2023, 12(15), 2973; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12152973 - 07 Aug 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 906

Abstract

Accurate species identification, especially in the fishery sector, is critical for ensuring food safety, consumer protection and to prevent economic losses. In this study, a total of 93 individual frozen–thawed cuttlefish samples from four different species (S. officinalis, S. bertheloti, S. aculeata, and Sepiella inermis) were collected from two wholesale fish plants in Chioggia, Italy. Species identification was carried out by inspection through morphological features using dichotomic keys and then through near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) measurements. The NIRS data were collected using a handled-portable spectrophotometer, and the spectral range scanned was from 900–1680 nm. The collected spectra were processed using principal component analysis for unsupervised analysis and a support vector machine for supervised analysis to evaluate the species identification capability. The results showed that NIRS classification had a high overall accuracy of 93% in identifying the cuttlefish species. This finding highlights the robustness and effectiveness of spectral analysis as a tool for species identification, even in complex spatial contexts. The findings emphasize the potential of NIRS as a valuable tool in the field of fishery product authentication, offering a rapid and eco-friendly approach to species identification in the post-processing stages. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations)

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15 pages, 5225 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effects of Light Shading, Fertilization, and Cultivar Type on the Stable Isotope Distribution of Hybrid Rice

by Syed Abdul Wadood, Yunzhu Jiang, Jing Nie, Chunlin Li, Karyne M. Rogers, Hongyan Liu, Yongzhi Zhang, Weixing Zhang and Yuwei Yuan

Foods 2023, 12(9), 1832; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12091832 - 28 Apr 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1057

Abstract

The effect of fertilizer supply and light intensity on the distribution of elemental contents (%C and %N) and light stable isotopes (C, N, H, and O) in different rice fractions (rice husk, brown rice, and polished rice) of two hybrid rice cultivars (maintainer lines You-1B and Zhong-9B) were investigated. Significant variations were observed for δ¹³C (−31.3 to −28.3‰), δ¹⁵N (2.4 to 2.7‰), δ²H (−125.7 to −84.7‰), and δ¹⁸O (15.1‰ to 23.7‰) values in different rice fractions among different cultivars. Fertilizer treatments showed a strong association with %N, δ¹⁵N, δ²H, and δ¹⁸O values while it did not impart any significant variation for the %C and δ¹³C values. Light intensity levels also showed a significant influence on the isotopic values of different rice fractions. The δ¹³C values showed a positive correlation with irradiance. The δ²H and δ¹⁵N values decreased with an increase in the irradiance. The light intensity levels did not show any significant change for δ¹⁸O values in rice fractions. Multivariate ANOVA showed a significant interaction effect of different factors (light intensity, fertilizer concentration, and rice variety) on the isotopic composition of rice fractions. It is concluded that all environmental and cultivation factors mentioned above significantly influenced the isotopic values and should be considered when addressing the authenticity and origin of rice. Furthermore, care should be taken when selecting rice fractions for traceability and authenticity studies since isotopic signatures vary considerably among different rice fractions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations)

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19 pages, 2516 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Benchmarking and Validation of a Bioinformatics Workflow for Meat Species Identification Using 16S rDNA Metabarcoding

by Grégoire Denay, Laura Preckel, Henning Petersen, Klaus Pietsch, Anne Wöhlke and Claudia Brünen-Nieweler

Foods 2023, 12(5), 968; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12050968 - 24 Feb 2023

Viewed by 1670

Abstract

DNA-metabarcoding is becoming more widely used for routine authentication of meat-based food and feed products. Several methods validating species identification methods through amplicon sequencing have already been published. These use a variety of barcodes and analysis workflows, however, no methodical comparison of available algorithms and parameter optimization are published hitherto for meat-based products’ authenticity. Additionally, many published methods use very small subsets of the available reference sequences, thereby limiting the potential of the analysis and leading to over-optimistic performance estimates. We here predict and compare the ability of published barcodes to distinguish taxa in the BLAST NT database. We then use a dataset of 79 reference samples, spanning 32 taxa, to benchmark and optimize a metabarcoding analysis workflow for 16S rDNA Illumina sequencing. Furthermore, we provide recommendations as to the parameter choices, sequencing depth, and thresholds that should be used to analyze meat metabarcoding sequencing experiments. The analysis workflow is publicly available, and includes ready-to-use tools for validation and benchmarking. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations)

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17 pages, 2546 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Development of Non-Targeted Mass Spectrometry Method for Distinguishing Spelt and Wheat

by Kapil Nichani, Steffen Uhlig, Bertrand Colson, Karina Hettwer, Kirsten Simon, Josephine Bönick, Carsten Uhlig, Sabine Kemmlein, Manfred Stoyke, Petra Gowik, Gerd Huschek and Harshadrai M. Rawel

Foods 2023, 12(1), 141; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12010141 - 27 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1612

Abstract

Food fraud, even when not in the news, is ubiquitous and demands the development of innovative strategies to combat it. A new non-targeted method (NTM) for distinguishing spelt and wheat is described, which aids in food fraud detection and authenticity testing. A highly resolved fingerprint in the form of spectra is obtained for several cultivars of spelt and wheat using liquid chromatography coupled high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS). Convolutional neural network (CNN) models are built using a nested cross validation (NCV) approach by appropriately training them using a calibration set comprising duplicate measurements of eleven cultivars of wheat and spelt, each. The results reveal that the CNNs automatically learn patterns and representations to best discriminate tested samples into spelt or wheat. This is further investigated using an external validation set comprising artificially mixed spectra, samples for processed goods (spelt bread and flour), eleven untypical spelt, and six old wheat cultivars. These cultivars were not part of model building. We introduce a metric called the D score to quantitatively evaluate and compare the classification decisions. Our results demonstrate that NTMs based on NCV and CNNs trained using appropriately chosen spectral data can be reliable enough to be used on a wider range of cultivars and their mixes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations)

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Review

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25 pages, 666 KiB

Open AccessReview

Molecular Barcoding: A Tool to Guarantee Correct Seafood Labelling and Quality and Preserve the Conservation of Endangered Species

by Laura Filonzi, Alessia Ardenghi, Pietro Maria Rontani, Andrea Voccia, Claudio Ferrari, Riccardo Papa, Nicolò Bellin and Francesco Nonnis Marzano

Foods 2023, 12(12), 2420; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12122420 - 20 Jun 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2840

Abstract

The recent increase in international fish trade leads to the need for improving the traceability of fishery products. In relation to this, consistent monitoring of the production chain focusing on technological developments, handling, processing and distribution via global networks is necessary. Molecular barcoding has therefore been suggested as the gold standard in seafood species traceability and labelling. This review describes the DNA barcoding methodology for preventing food fraud and adulteration in fish. In particular, attention has been focused on the application of molecular techniques to determine the identity and authenticity of fish products, to discriminate the presence of different species in processed seafood and to characterize raw materials undergoing food industry processes. In this regard, we herein present a large number of studies performed in different countries, showing the most reliable DNA barcodes for species identification based on both mitochondrial (COI, cytb, 16S rDNA and 12S rDNA) and nuclear genes. Results are discussed considering the advantages and disadvantages of the different techniques in relation to different scientific issues. Special regard has been dedicated to a dual approach referring to both the consumer’s health and the conservation of threatened species, with a special focus on the feasibility of the different genetic and genomic approaches in relation to both scientific objectives and permissible costs to obtain reliable traceability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Food Fraud as a Global Problem: Advanced Analytical Tools to Detect Species, Country of Origin and Adulterations)

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