Novel NMR-Technology to Assess Food Quality and Safety

High Resolution NMR Spectroscopy offers unique screening capabilities for food quality and safety by combining non-targeted and targeted screening in one analysis. The objective is to demonstrate, that due to its extreme reproducibility NMR can detect smallest changes in concentrations of many components in a mixture, which is best monitored by statistical evaluation however also delivers reliable quantification results. The methodology typically uses a 400 MHz high resolution instrument under full automation after minimized sample preparation. For example one fruit juice analysis in a push button operation takes at maximum 15 minutes and delivers a multitude of results, which are automatically summarized in a PDF report. The method has been proven on fruit juices, where so far unknown frauds could be detected. In addition conventional targeted parameters are obtained in the same analysis. This technology has the advantage that NMR is completely quantitative and concentration calibration only has to be done once for all compounds. Since NMR is so reproducible, it is also transferable between different instruments (with same field strength) and laboratories. Based on strict SOP`s, statistical models developed once can be used on multiple instruments and strategies for compound identification and quantification are applicable as well across labs