Characterization of Multi-element Profiles and Multi-isotope Ratio Records as a Tool for Determination of the Geographical Origin of Various Plant Species

Determination of food authenticity is an important issue in quality control and food safety. In recent years, many serious diseases appeared related to foodstuffs, so providing the motivation for the scientific community to work more intensively in this area. Authenticity is a quality criterion for food and food ingredients and is required more and more worldwide, as a result of legislative protection for regional foods. Reviews of analytical methods for the determination of geographical origin of food and beverages have been published. However, organic components of a food crop production depend on various conditions (e.g. fertilization, history of the field, climatic conditions in the year of cultivation, geographic location and soil composition), so it is not always possible to determine the origin of a product by analysing the organic components. Additionally, methods based on elemental composition have been reviewed as have methods based on isotope ratios. Over the past decade, with the development of new advanced analytical techniques [e.g. thermal ionization MS (TIMS), inductively coupled plasma MS (ICP-MS) and dynamic reaction cell-ICPMS (DRC-ICPMS)], we can successfully retrieve elemental and isotopic compositions of any given food sample and determine the geographic origin successfully. The growing concern of the consumers stimulated scientific research and publications in recent years, including multi-element and isotope ratio methods of analysis in food authentication after statistical evaluation of the results. Several aspects will be described: (a) propose a new technique for evaluating spatially explicit trace element profile in various environmental samples (with organic and inorganic complex matrixes); (b) evaluate whether element composition of the environmental samples can be attributed to large-scale geographic trace element variation associated with underlying geology or fine-scale spatial differences related to foraging habitat; (c) determine whether element profiles along the individual species are autocorrelated (i.e. occurring in a predictable or random pattern); (d) prove spatially resolved multi-element information that could be used for identification of geographical origin of various environmental samples and foodstuffs.