Fraudulent practices are the first and foremost concern of food industry, with significant consequences in economy and human’s health. The increasing demand for food has led to food fraud by replacing, mixing, blending, and mislabeling products attempting to increase the profits of producers and companies. Consequently, there was the rise of a multidisciplinary field which encompasses a large number of analytical techniques aiming to trace and authenticate the origins of agricultural products, food and beverages. Among the analytical strategies have been developed for the authentication of geographical origin of foodstuff, Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) increasingly dominates the field as a robust, accurate, and highly sensitive technique for determining the inorganic elements in food substances. Inorganic elements are well known for evaluating the nutritional composition of food products while it has been shown that they are considered as possible tracers for authenticating the geographical origin. This is based on the fact that the inorganic component of identical food type originating from different territories varies due to the diversity of matrix composition. The present systematic literature review focusing on gathering the research has been done up-to-date on authenticating the geographical origin of agricultural products and foods by utilizing the ICP-MS technique. The first part of the article is a tutorial about food safety/control and the fundaments of ICP-MS technique, while in the second part the total research review is discussed.

A monitoring study of pesticides belonging to different chemical families was carried out in Amvrakia lake (West Greece) waters after land use changes in the lake's basin. Based on land-use patterns, nine sampling points were selected. Pesticides were extracted by solid phase extraction (SPE) using Oasis HLB cartridges and analysed by gas chromatographic techniques with flame thermionic and mass-spectra detection. Pesticides detected during the monitoring survey include eight herbicides (alachlor, atrazine, s-metolachlor, pendimethalin, prometryne, propachlor, simazine, trifluralin) and one metabolite (deethyl atrazine) with concentration levels up to 807 ng L⁻¹ (recorded for alachlor), eight insecticides (azinphos methyl, chlorpyrifos, chlorpyrifos methyl, diazinon, dimethoate, fenitrothion, malathion, methidathion) with concentration levels up to 490 ng L⁻¹ (recorded for azinphos methyl) and six fungicides (benalaxyl, cyproconazole, fenarimol, pyrimethanil, triadimefon, triadimenol) with concentration levels up to 408 ng L⁻¹ (recorded for pyrimethanil). More frequently detected pesticides were atrazine, deethyl atrazine, alachlor, azinphos methyl, chlorpyrifos methyl, diazinon and pyrimethanil. The higher concentrations were measured during spring-early summer period, following seasonal application of pesticides and diminished significantly during winter. Littoral sampling stations presented higher pesticide concentration levels and more frequent detection. Aquatic risk assessment was based on the Risk Quotient (RQ = MEC/PNEC) deterministic method regarding three trophic levels: algae, aquatic invertebrates and fish. Non-acceptable risk for 10 compounds was observed when maximum concentrations were used. Compliance to EC environmental quality standards is also discussed.

Consumers are increasingly interested in the geographical origin of the foodstuff they consume as an important characteristic of food authenticity and quality. To assure the authenticity of the geographical origin, various methods have been proposed. Stable isotope analysis is a method that has been extensively used for products such as wine, oil, meat, while only a few studies have been conducted for the discrimination of seafood origin and especially for mullet roes or bottarga products. Analysis of the stable isotopes of C, N and S of Bottarga samples from four different origins were carried out. The values of δ¹⁵N (5.45‰) and δ³⁴S (4.66‰) for the Greek Bottarga Product named ‘Avgotaracho Messolongiou’, from Messolongi lagoon were lower than other areas while δ¹³C values were higher (−14.84‰). The first results show that the stable isotopes ratios of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur could be used to discriminate the Greek Protected Designations of Origin Bottarga product ‘Avgotaracho Messolongiou’ from other similar products.

Passive sampling is an emerging tool for monitoring micropollutants in surface waters and enables the determination of time-weighted average (TWA) concentration over extended sampling periods. For the determination of TWA concentration, the sampling rates (Rs) for the compounds of interest are required. Laboratory calibration experiments were conducted in order to determine the sampling rates of 12 selected pesticides using Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Samplers (pest-POCIS). The experiments were performed on the basis of static renewal exposure of pest-POCIS under stirred conditions for different time intervals up to 28 days. The recoveries of target pesticides ranged between 71 % and 120 % with relative standard deviation (RSD) <18%. Detection limits (LODs) and quantification limits (LOQs) ranged between 0.5 and 6 ng L−1 and 1.6 and 19.7 ng L−1, respectively. The uptake in POCIS for the studied pesticides followed a linear pattern throughout the 28 days of exposure, except for fipronil. The calculated sampling rates ranged from 0.030 L day−1 to 0.223 L day−1. The pesticides pirimiphos methyl, clofentezine, cyprodinil, fipronil and kresoxim methyl have never been studied before in calibration experiments using pest-POCIS passive samplers. Using the described analytical procedure, trace levels (ng L−1) of the target pesticides could be determined in surface waters.