Emerging applications of metabolomics in food science and future trends

•Different metabolomics platforms and their prioritization in food are comparied.•NIRS is more suitable for food applications due to its non-destructive and fast advantages.•Combining metabolomic detection and chemometric analysis can quickly identify food adulteration.•Portable metabolomics analysis equipment and mobile terminal analysis software have been applied. Metabolomics is a relatively new component in systems biology that focuses on the high-throughput characterization of small molecular metabolites in biological systems. It is widely used in several scientific fields, particularly in that of food. Due to its excellent detection and prediction capacities, metabolomics well suited to analyze such complex matrix. This review emphasizes the most commonly used food metabolomics analytical technologies with a focus on novel approaches that have emerged in recent years, highlighting their suitability for food samples analysis as aided by chemometric data visualization. A comparison is presented among different metabolomics platforms and their prioritization for which metabolite classes in food. Application of metabolomics are presented in the context of food composition analysis, food quality safety, and food traceability. Furthermore, the constraints and limitations of actual metabolomics applications are explored, bringing novel insights into metabolomics use in food science to maximize its application potential in that major industrial sector.