Ensuring food safety and quality has become increasingly critical due to the complexities introduced by globalization, industrialization, and extended supply chains. Traditional analytical methods for food quality control, such as chromatography and mass spectrometry, while accurate, face limitations including high costs, lengthy analysis times, and limited suitability for on-site rapid monitoring. Electrochemical sensors integrated with molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have emerged as promising alternatives, combining high selectivity and sensitivity with portability and affordability. MIPs, often termed ‘plastic antibodies,’ are synthetic receptors capable of selective molecular recognition, tailored specifically for target analytes. This review comprehensively discusses recent advancements in MIP-based electrochemical sensing platforms, highlighting their applications in detecting various food quality markers. It particularly emphasizes the detection of antioxidants—both natural (e.g., vitamins, phenolics) and synthetic (e.g., BHA, TBHQ), artificial sweeteners (e.g., aspartame, acesulfame-K), colorants (e.g., azo dyes, anthocyanins), traditional contaminants (e.g., pesticides, heavy metals), and toxicants such as mycotoxins (e.g., aflatoxins, ochratoxins). The synthesis methods, including bulk, precipitation, surface imprinting, sol–gel polymerization, and electropolymerization (EP), are critically evaluated for their effectiveness in creating highly selective binding sites. Furthermore, the integration of advanced nanomaterials, such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, and metallic nanoparticles, into these platforms to enhance sensitivity, selectivity, and stability is examined. Practical challenges, including sensor reusability, regeneration strategies, and adaptability to complex food matrices, are addressed. Finally, the review provides an outlook on future developments and practical considerations necessary to transition these innovative MIP electrochemical sensors from laboratory research to widespread adoption in industry and regulatory settings, ultimately ensuring comprehensive food safety and consumer protection.

The detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at low operating temperatures is critical for public health, environmental monitoring, and industrial safety, yet it remains a significant challenge for conventional sensor technologies. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as highly versatile precursors for creating advanced sensing materials. This review critically examines the transformation of MOFs into functional catalytic interfaces for low-temperature chemiresistive VOC sensing. We survey the key synthetic strategies, with a focus on controlled pyrolysis, that enable the conversion of insulating MOF precursors into semiconducting derivatives with tailored porosity, morphology, and catalytically active sites. This review establishes the crucial synthesis-structure-performance relationships that govern sensing behavior, analyzing how factors like calcination temperature and precursor composition dictate the final material’s properties. We delve into the underlying chemiresistive sensing mechanisms, supported by evidence from advanced characterization techniques such as in situ DRIFTS and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which elucidate the role of oxygen vacancies and heterojunctions in enhancing low-temperature catalytic activity. A central focus is placed on the persistent challenges of achieving high selectivity and robust performance in complex, real-world environments. We critically evaluate and compare strategies to mitigate interference from confounding gases and ambient humidity, including intrinsic material design and extrinsic system-level solutions like sensor arrays coupled with machine learning. Finally, this review synthesizes the current state of the art, identifies key bottlenecks related to stability and scalability, and provides a forward-looking perspective on emerging frontiers, including novel device architectures and computational co-design, to guide the future development of practical MOF-derived VOC sensors.