Food Fraud and Food Authenticity across the Food Supply Chain

Dear Colleagues,

Food fraud can be defined as any suspected intentional action—by businesses or individuals—for the purpose of deceiving purchasers and gaining undue advantage therefrom, in violation of the agri-food chain legislation. These intentional infringements of the agri-food chain legislation may hinder the proper functioning of the internal market and may also constitute a risk to human, animal, or plant health; animal welfare; or the environment as regards GMOs and plant protection products/residues of veterinary drugs. Dilution, substitution, concealment, unapproved enhancement, counterfeit, and mislabeling represent different forms of common food frauds. Many recent scandals reported a significant risk for consumers. The overall analytical control of the food supply chain (starting from the field/producers and reaching the tables of the consumers) is, therefore, a critical requirement.

The concept of the “integrity” of foods is of primary interest for worldwide consumers, and is strictly correlated with food fraud and food safety issues. The awareness of food origin and authenticity from the consumer’s perspective (but also from that of the food producer, distributor and retailer) has become increasingly strategic during the last 10 years. Moreover, when the idea of the “circular economy” took hold (particularly regarding the re-use and valorization of by- and co-products), the ability to trace food ingredients/complex foods and their origin has become a strict necessity. The capacity to track and authenticate ingredients/foods across the food supply chain using analytical and molecular tools (often coupled today with the use of the advanced statistical post-analysis processing, as well as with the use of the artificial intelligence-based approaches) is currently considered the right process to trace quality and safety along food chains. In addition to the process based on the blockchain idea, the application of analytical and biotechnological solutions protects the rights of consumers, in terms of the availability of food characterized by high quality and safety, combatting food fraud.

In light of the above, we invite researchers to submit unpublished original manuscripts on food authenticity and traceability across the food supply chain, to be included in this Special Issue. The subjects covered by this issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Food authenticity and traceability;
• Ingredients/food fingerprinting;
• Development of methods for food quality, safety and traceability;
• Detection of undeclared novel ingredients in foods;
• Analytical solutions (targeted and untargeted methods) for food authenticity and traceability;
• Multi-methods approaches and data fusion;
• Molecular analysis and biotechnological solutions (immunochemistry; PCR-related techniques; nucleic acids probes; micro- and nanosensors, MEMS);
• Advanced statistical methods, post-analytical processing, Artificial Intelligence-based methods, and machine learning;
• Blockchain, coupled with analytical approaches.

Prof. Dr. Marco Arlorio
Dr. Matteo Bordiga
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• food authenticity and traceability
• ingredients/food fingerprinting
• development of methods for food quality, safety and traceability
• detection of undeclared novel ingredients in foods
• analytical solutions (targeted and untargeted methods)
• multi-methods approaches and data fusion
• molecular analysis and biotechnological solutions (immunochemistry
• PCR-related techniques
• nucleic acids probes
• micro- and nanosensors, MEMS)
• advanced statistical methods, post-analytical processing, Artificial Intelligence-based methods, and machine learning
• blockchain, coupled with analytical approaches