**Dario Donno \* , Maria Gabriella Mellano, Giovanni Gamba, Isidoro Riondato and Gabriele Loris Beccaro**

Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali e Alimentari, Università degli Studi di Torino, 10095 Grugliasco, Italy; gabriella.mellano@unito.it (M.G.M.); giovanni.gamba@unito.it (G.G.); isidoro.riondato@unito.it (I.R.); gabriele.beccaro@unito.it (G.L.B.) **\*** Correspondence: dario.donno@unito.it; Tel.: +39-011-670-8751

Received: 29 October 2020; Accepted: 23 November 2020; Published: 25 November 2020 -

**Abstract:** New technology development and globalisation have led to extreme changes in the agri-food sector in recent years that need an important food supply chain characterisation from plant materials to commercial productions. Many analytical strategies are commonly utilised in the agri-food industry, often using complementary technologies with different purposes. Chromatography on-line coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the most selective and sensitive analytical methodologies. The purpose of this overview is to present the most recent MS-based techniques applied to food analysis. An entire section is dedicated to the recent applications of high-resolution MS. Covered topics include liquid (LC)– and gas chromatography (GC)–MS analysis of natural bioactive substances, including carbohydrates, flavonoids and related compounds, lipids, phenolic compounds, vitamins, and other different molecules in foodstuffs from the perspectives of food composition, food authenticity and food adulteration. The results represent an important contribution to the utilisation of GC–MS and LC–MS in the field of natural bioactive compound identification and quantification.

**Keywords:** food analysis; High Performance Liquid Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (HPLC–MS) techniques; Orbitrap; High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS); natural substances; antioxidant molecules
