Metabolomics for assessing safety and quality of plant-derived food

Plant-derived foods are typically subjected to postharvest storage and processing before consumption by humans. Changes in metabolite composition that occur during these processes are important for safety, acceptability and nutritional value of foods. However, predicting how the concentrations of plant metabolites will change during postharvest storage and processing is extremely difficult. Because metabolomics allows the simultaneous characterisation of large numbers of small metabolites in biological matrices, it actually offers a more detailed and comprehensive molecular picture of food composition. Metabolomics can detect small molecules such as amino acids, organic acids, sugars, volatile metabolites and many other health-related compounds such as phenolic compounds, carotenoids or anthocyanins. Such molecules are known to play important roles in safety and quality of foods. The purpose of this review is to compile and summarise the information obtained from the application of metabolomics in food research and to discuss its future potential. •Discussion of the application of metabolomics to assess quality and safety of food.•Metabolic profiling for understanding the biochemical basis of plant physiology.•Identification of biomarkers related to fruit maturation, ripening and storage.•Metabolomic fingerprinting is useful to assess food traceability and authenticity.•Commercial attributes are determined with metabolomics approaches in processed food.