Metabolomics approaches based on mass spectrometry for food safety, quality and traceability

•We critically review the most recent (2010–13) MS-based metabolomics applications.•Metabolomics is a useful tool to cope with the most challenging analytical issues.•Further developments will help correlate metabolite composition and food quality.

Robust, efficient, sensitive and cost-effective analytical methodologies need to be developed continuously to guarantee food safety, quality and traceability. The rapid development of metabolomics-based approaches using mass spectrometry (MS) has demonstrated their potential to face these challenges. This review presents a critical overview of the most recent applications of MS-based metabolomics approaches for food quality, safety and traceability assays, covering the most relevant works published from 2010 to 2013. We also provide information about the different steps needed to develop a MS-metabolomics approach (i.e. sample treatment, analytical platform, and data processing).