Abstract:

Due to the change in diet habits and increasing health awareness, consumers are paying tremendous attentions to the geographical origin of animal-derived food products. As one of the most important parts in food traceability system, geographical origin of food products can be used to not only protect interests of consumers, regional brand and specialty products for ensuring fair competition, but also effectively implement product recall for preventing against the transmission of food-borne pathogens. Analyses of stable isotopes, trace elements and chemical compositions of foods are effective analytical tools to trace geographic origin of food products, which exhibits quite prospects. In this paper, current development status quo and problems in the determination of geographical origin of animal-derived foods, and basic principles of these methods are discussed. The future development directions are also proposed.

Key words: animal-derived foods, geographical origin, stable isotope, trace element, chemical composition