Potential and limitations of non-targeted fingerprinting for authentication of food in official control

- Food fingerprinting is an upcoming approach in authentication.
- The basis is the non-targeted analysis of food followed by chemometric data evaluation.
- Authentication literature of the last five years is critically reviewed.
- Focus is on three major food matrices of concern: wine, oil and honey.
- Implementation in official food control requires standardization and validation.

The investigation of the so-called food fingerprints provides high potential with regard to the characterization and identity verification of food. Therefore, this kind of non-targeted analysis obtained increasingly importance during the recent years. These applications are usually based on spectroscopic and spectrometric data providing the capability for a comprehensive characterization of the investigated matrices. The subsequent statistical multivariate data analysis enables a general identification of many deviations from the expected product composition. Besides the classical tests of authenticity of foods, a comprehensive analysis that also allows the detection of hazardous or safety-relevant manipulations and violations of the respective laws e.g. with regard to non-authorized food additives or a prohibited use of technological processes is of urgent need in food control. In the literature, several approaches are already pursuing the non-targeted observation of abnormalities in various foods covering a broad variety of analytical methods. This review highlights a current overview of the applicability of this approach using classic spectroscopic as well as spectrometric analytical techniques on the basis of examples of the three most investigated food matrices: honey, olive oil and wine. Furthermore, difficulties as well as challenges regarding the use of food fingerprinting in official food control are discussed.