Gas Chromatographic Fingerprinting Coupled to Chemometrics for Food Authentication

Fingerprinting has become a powerful device in food authentication activities. Food products can be verified based on their chemical composition, geographical origin, specified botanical sources or possible adulterations by fingerprinting gas chromatographic chemical analysis and a subsequent multivariate data analysis. Although fingerprinting approaches have already been used successfully in many research projects, feasibility and employment in routine daily tests and food composition monitoring are not still widespread. Within this review, food fingerprinting studies in gas chromatographic methods for different food product categories were selected by a systematic search method. The studies were examined for chemometrics techniques, identification of effective variables, method validation and quality assurance parameters. In this way, the research activities could be considered as an effective starting point to establish fingerprinting techniques for food authentication in wide industrial scale in the future.