Food Origin Analysis with Isotope Fingerprints

Dear Colleagues,

The control of the geographic origin of food has become of increasing importance, as consumers prefer regionality, high quality, sustainability, a small(er) carbon footprint, short distances, animal welfare, support of local farmers and national/regional economy, and many more claims connected to food of regional production. In many countries, food of national and regional production is preferred to food coming from abroad, albeit with some exceptions. Also, countries aim to increase consumer awareness with respect to regional production, as this strengthens regional economy and agriculture, and an increase in demand usually leads to a higher price that the consumer is willing to pay with respect to competing products from abroad. Other issues requiring the control of geographic origin of food include cases of contamination, when the source of contamination needs to be identified and cannot be found by the accompanying paper documents, taxes, export support and customs fraud, product piracy/brand counterfeiting, forensic cases, etc.

The determination and control of geographic origin of food is conventionally carried out by stable isotope analysis, but other methods, such as trace element profiles, molecular markers, metabolomics, etc., are also applied and have recently gained attention and produced success stories.

In the proposed Special Issue, contributions on state-of-the-art methodology and new research on stable isotope analysis and additional techniques for the control and determination of geographic origin are welcome. Research articles and review articles as well as short communications are invited.

Dr. Micha Horacek
Prof. Dr. Andrew Cannavan
Prof. Dr. Nives Ogrinc
Guest Editors

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