Application note: Food authenticity testing with the Agilent 6546 LC/Q-TOF and MassHunter Classifier

False labeling and adulteration are growing problems in food manufacturing, underlining the need for easy-to-use tools for quality control analysis in this industry.

This Application Note describes a novel method enabling routine testing of food authenticity. The workflow consisted of an Agilent 6546 LC/Q-TOF used with MassHunter Profinder 10.0, Mass Profiler Professional 15.0, and Classifier 1.0 software. The method rapidly produced reliable results as insights into food quality.

The food manufacturing industry is increasingly interested in food authenticity testing, as adulteration and fraudulent labeling becomes more common across a complex food supply chain. With the costs of premium ingredients and products rising, the incidence of adulterated or imitation products will continue to increase. Currently, the development and deployment of methods and procedures for testing for such activity is limited by the lack of user-friendly tools. Advancing such tools and workflows can improve quality control procedures of ingredients in the supply chain or final manufactured products in the consumer market place. This advance allows food manufacturers to consistently use authentic materials.