The role of vibrational spectroscopy as a tool to assess economically motivated fraud and counterfeit issues in agricultural products and foods

One of the main food risks gaining attention from industry, governments, and standards-setting organizations is fraud conducted for economic gain by food producers, manufacturers, processors, distributors, or retailers. The infrared (IR) spectrum originates from the absorption of different frequencies by a sample positioned in the path of an IR beam (e.g. near or mid infrared beams) determining the IR fingerprint of a given sample. This fingerprint signal contains most of the relevant (chemical, physical, process) information related to the sample allowing tracing its origin. The aim of this article is to highlight different applications of the main vibrational spectroscopy (near, mid and Raman spectroscopy) techniques as tools to assess fraud and counterfeit issues in foods. Examples of such applications include samples of milk, fish, meat, olive oil as well as other agricultural products and foods.