Verifica della autenticità e qualità di prodotti alimentari: metodologie e applicazioni

In recent years food safety and quality have become a principal demand of the citizen, and the determination of food authenticity and geographical origin is now a crucial issue both for consumer choice and for food authorities, as demonstrated by the promulgation of several laws regarding food labeling, traceability and authenticity. Products with any labels or indications are perceived by consumers as high-quality food products, for reasons that vary from specific culinary or organoleptic qualities associated with regional products, health safety, and patriotism, to concern about animal welfare and environmentally friendly production methods. This allows producers to obtain market recognition and premium, and many suffer from piracy of their brands. In this contest, the analytical authentication of what is declared on labels is of fundamental importance to assure producers against fair competition and consumers against harmful fraudulent practices. In this work three food sectors of relevant impact on European economy are examined: Italian wine, fruit juices and milk from organic agriculture. All these sectors are examined in relation to European regulation, market features and analytical tools for their authentication described in literature. The experimental part describes innovative methods for the authenticity assessment of these food matrices. Biogenic amines fingerprinting have been used for Italian red wines and fruit juices, while 13C/12C isotopic ratio for milk from organic agriculture. The results, after being processed by chemometric techniques, are quite encouraging, in fact biogenic amines succeeded in discriminating Italian red wines for retail price segment and grape variety, while fruit juices for species of origin. This is the first research conducted on the presence of these natural contaminants in fruit juices and its data had proven to be useful both toxicological and authentication points of view. The analysis were conducted with an improved chromatographic method that allowed to shorten analysis time and save chemicals. Also the results obtained from the analysis of 13C/12C isotopic ratio of milk allowed to differentiate to conventional milk from organic milk, demonstrating to be a reliable marker for this kind of production verification. The studies hereby described highlight the importance of pursuing greater importance and diffusion of analytical controls in food authentication, by official institutions and private firms, as a powerful tool to avoid counterfeiting in food products, to enhance consumer trust and for commercial valorization of peculiar food products’ characteristics.