Nontargeted Screening Approaches for Potential Food Adulterants and Contaminants

Despite a wealth of analytical methods existing for food safety screening, the vast majority of these methods focus on specific compounds or a defined set of compounds, leaving unseen contaminants. Ann M. Knolhoff, a researcher for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, spoke to LCGC Europe about the development of nontargeted screening approaches for potential contaminants and adulterants in food, and the considerations around sample preparation, chromatography, mass spectrometry, and data processing workflows.