The future of analytical chemistry in foodomics

The field of food analytical chemistry has greatly evolved over the last years, moving from the descriptive view of raw food composition into the modern instrumental approaches known as the foodomics. The development and optimization of these integrated approaches, based on the use of high resolution techniques for tracing the chemical fingerprint of a food, is arriving to define molecular parameters for the qualification, authentication, and safety of the products. With these new tools, omics are solving some of the new issues of food quality and traceability, including the development of analytical methods to ensure the origin of food, as well as the discovery of biomarkers to identify potential food safety problems. Here we review the main methods used in foodomics from its birth until now, highlighting the use of high throughput instrumentation. This includes the computational problems they generate, but also the significant prospects for development of knowledge that are able to open in important areas such as food technology and biotechnology.