Analysis of Volatiles in Food Products

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I would suggest a change in the title: delete “varied”.

Please include more references and discussion on other important applications of volatolomics or volatiles determination, for example botanical and geographical origins of cocoa (authenticity studies).

Author Response

I would like to thank the Reviewer for their efforts in the evaluation of the manuscript and for valuable comments. Please find enclosed answers to suggestions. We hope that after the introduced changes, the manuscript will be suitable for publication. All the corrections are marked in red in the text.

a) The phrase "varied" has been deleted from the title.

b) The followed references have been added to the manuscript.

1. Rodriguez-Campos, J..; Escalona-Buendía, H.B.; Orozco-Avila, I.; Lugo-Cervantes, E.; Jaramillo-Flores, M.E. Dynamics of volatile and non-volatile compounds in cocoa (Theobroma cacao) during fermentation and drying processes using principal components analysis. Food Research International 2011, 44 (1), 250-258. doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2010.10.028.
2. Caprioli, G.; Fiorini, D.; Maggi, F.; Nicoletti, M.; Ricciutelli, M.; Toniolo, C.; Prosper, B.; Vittori, S.; Sagratini, G. Nutritional composition, bioactive compounds and volatile profile of cocoa beans from different regions of Cameroon. International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition 2016, 67(4), 422-30. doi: 10.3109/09637486.2016.1170769.
3. Marseglia, A.; Musci, M.; Rinaldi, M.; Palla, G.; Caligiani, A. Volatile fingerprint of unroasted and roasted cocoa beans (Theobroma cacao) from different geographical origins. Food Research International 2020, 132, 109101. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2020.109101.
4. Michel, S.; Baraka, L.F.; Ibañez, A.J.; Mansurova, M. Mass spectrometry-based flavor monitoring of Peruvian chocolate fabrication process. Metabolites 2021, 26, 11(2), 71. doi:10.3390/metabo11020071.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript (separations-1376455) provides an interesting and well-done overview of recent and popular methods for extraction and identification of volatiles in food products. The four main steps involved in the evaluation of volatiles in food matrixes, namely isolation and concentration, separation, identification, and sensory characterization, were discussed in a comprehensive and concise way, highlighting the main characteristics and applications of the revised techniques. The document is technically well structured and written and is easy to read. Overall, this subject is worthy of review and the work presented is innovative and could have a great impact and number of citations.

Additional comments and suggestions:

• Several approaches have been adopted to establish volatile profiles in quantitative terms and, therefore, the results have been expressed in different ways. It would be interesting to include a brief critical discussion on methods of quantification, semi-quantification, etc. commonly used by different authors to express the results of volatile compounds, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of such approaches.
• Line 69. “inter action” or interaction?
• Line 189. The meaning of “LLE” should be provided in full.
• Line 291. Replace “Averbeck, and Schieberle [28]” with “Averbeck and Schieberle [28]”.

Author Response

I would like to thank the Reviewer for the efforts in the evaluation of the manuscript and for valuable comments. Please find enclosed answers to questions and suggestions of reviewers. We hope that after the introduced changes, the manuscript will be suitable for publication. All the corrections are marked in red in the text.

• Several approaches have been adopted to establish volatile profiles in quantitative terms and, therefore, the results have been expressed in different ways. It would be interesting to include a brief critical discussion on methods of quantification, semi-quantification, etc. commonly used by different authors to express the results of volatile compounds, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of such approaches. Answer: Thank you for that suggestion appropriate comment has been included directly in the text from Line 280.