Food control: quality assurance and protection against adulteration techniques

Abstract

The quality assessment of agro-food typical of the member states is one of the primary objectives of economic policy and agriculture in the EU. The check on overall quality, according to the specifications and typical products, however, is subject to information gaps that are subject to continuous development of methods of analysis. This has resulted in multiple attempts at adulteration and counterfeiting, which allowed the use of poor quality products and / or different geographical origin and / or non-typical tree species, with consequences for consumers, local producers on "honest" on the preservation of local ecotypes. In this context, this research is a meaningful goal to promote local quality products and protection from the illegal adulteration techniques, providing analytical parameter control from the local reference for the consumer protection. This PhD research was conducted almost entirely in agreement with the laboratory of Catania of Central Inspectorate Department of Protection and Prevention of Fraud quality of food products (ICQRF), considering its growing interest in organic production controls, as well as typical products of denomination of protected and controlled origin, determined by the new supervisory functions assigned to it by the rules mentioned above. In this context, this research has the meaningful objective of health-promoting typical quality products and protection against illegal adulteration techniques, providing analytical control parameter for the protection of the consumer. The work has developed on several fronts, deepening different research topics as individual cases of study: - Characterization of Sicilian peach cultivars with different ripening stages. - Evaluation of bioactive compounds of chinotto extract used in the preparation of commercial soft drinks. - Development of an analytical method for evaluating the adulteration of saffron with the less valuable spices. - Detection of illegal use of short-chain aliphatic amines in the wax coating for fruit for consumption. - Characterization of dansyl-biogenic amines by HPLC-UV-ESI/MS. The analytical results of this PhD thesis have been the subject of communications from different conferences have produced many scientific papers and are currently applied at the ICQRF Laboratory of Catania in food official controls.