From fingerprinting to kinetics in evaluating food quality changes

From fingerprinting to kinetics in food quality evaluation, a hypothesis-free zoom-in approach to key food quality changes involves:•Step 1. Fingerprinting of a particular food extract•Step 2. Interpretation of the identity of the selected discriminant compounds•Step 3. Multiresponse kinetics of a particular complex food reaction•Step 4. Single-response kinetics of a particular compound or food quality attribute

Historically, the study of food quality changes during processing, preservation, and storage has evolved from targeted, single-response studies towards studies relying on both targeted and untargeted approaches analyzing multiple responses. In our opinion, future studies should be based on a zoom-in approach in which fingerprinting is used as a multivariate, hypothesis-free starting point to screen for key quality differences in food extracts of differently processed, preserved, and stored foods. By interpreting the identity of selected fingerprint markers in terms of their relevance and consequences for application or connecting the markers to particular food reactions, in a subsequent kinetic study mechanistic as well as quantitative insight into the effect of extrinsic processing variables on quality changes can be obtained.