Use of X-ray diffraction technique and chemometrics to aid soil sampling strategies in traceability studies

► X-ray diffraction is used as a fingerprint to characterize soil samples in a blind analysis approach. ► Chemometrics to assess soil samples variability (inter-/intra-field, depth, seasonal). ► PCA and PARAFAC have been used to highlight the depth profile of analyzed soil samples. ► Hill soils results are more complex and heterogeneous than in-plain ones. ► This study allows to project a sampling strategy to reduce the number of samples.