Objective:

To develop lipidomic techniques to verify the authenticity of the food.

Context:

Food authentication consists in verifying that a food product complies with the stipulations in their labeling regarding aspects of composition, biological , geographical origin and production system . Fraud might be committed when one or several of these aspects do not agree with the information given to the consumer. Food products with high added value are susceptible to fraud. To avoid fraud it is important to establish control systems. Currently for most foods, these control systems are based on administrative inspections and certification procedures. The availability of analytical techniques to authenticate food  could mean an advantage to increase the number of control options for reducing fraud. In this research area we find “chemical fingerprints” of the authentic food products. These fingerprints are found in the results provided by the various analytical techniques , and are used to distinguish genuine products from those that are not, in a manner similar to the use made of fingerprints for identify people.

Responsible for the research line:

Alba Tres, PhD

Other researchers:

Stefania Vichi PhD, Francesc Guardiola PhD