Traceability of fruits and vegetables

Food safety and traceability are nowadays a constant concern for consumers, and indeed for all actors in the food chain, including those involved in the fruit and vegetable sector. For the EU, the principles and legal requirements of traceability are set out in Regulation 178/2002. Currently however the regulation does not describe any analytical traceability tools. Furthermore, traceability systems for fruits and vegetables face increasing competition due to market globalization. The current challenge for actors in this sector is therefore to be sufficiently competitive in terms of price, traceability, quality and safety to avoid scandal and fraud. For all these reasons, new, flexible, cheap and efficient traceability tools, as isotopic analysis, DNA fingerprinting and metabolomic profiling coupled with chemometrics are needed. [Display omitted] •State of the art of the traceability analytical methods used on fruits and vegetables matrices.•Stable isotopes at natural abundance are a powerful tool for food traceability and authenticity.•DNA fingerprinting analysis & NGS application for food traceability and authenticity.•Metabolomics and chemometric are two unavoidable tools in food authenticity.