Trace elements and machine learning for Brazilian beef traceability

•Multi-elemental composition of beef evaluated by neutron activation analysis.•Three machine learning algorithms implemented to classify beef by biome.•Machine learning discriminated origin of beef from Brazilian biomes.•Highest classification performance achieved applying multilayer perceptron.•Highest discrimination of beef from Amazon and Caatinga biomes. Brazilian livestock with a herd of more than 215 million animals is distributed over a vast area of 160 million hectares, leading the country to the first position in the world beef exports and second in beef production and consumption. Animals risen in the biomes Amazônia, Caatinga, Cerrado, Pampa and Pantanal were selected for this study. Beef samples were analyzed for their elemental content by neutron activation analysis and classified according to their origin by three machine learning algorithms (Multilayer Perceptron, Random Forest and Classification and Regression Tree). Significant differences (p