The traceability of a given product may be defined as the “ability to trace the history, application or location of manufactured or distributed products”. “An object is what it is claimed to be” corresponds to authenticity. The Natural integrity is usually tackled by analytical methodologies that are based on different properties between the natural and the synthetic product. Enantiomeric excess is often met in natural chiral molecules. But the preferred configuration is not always the same according the species and/or the genera. Moreover the final enantiomeric excess is not always predictable when using biosynthesis catalyzed by modified enzymes. The 14C content may be considered as a tracer of products recently synthesized from atmospheric CO2 and particularly of recently produced bio-products. These two approaches may fail for the detection of semi-synthetic or subtle mixtures of natural and synthetic compounds. Interestingly stable isotope profiles deal with the molecule of interest itself, and are able to strip down its atomic composition. Such an intimate constitution is unique and characteristic of the different stages of the history of any molecule. Historically, the measurement of position-specific 2H/1H ratios (quantification of each 2H at different positions) had been exploited for the detection of forbidden chaptalization of wine and to authenticate natural aromas (SNIF-NMR). The 13C equivalent methodology (13C NMR) has been established only recently. The main difficulty of isotope 13C NMR is meeting the requirement for a high level of precision: better than 1‰! Examples (ethanol, vanillin, caffeine, olive oil) will be used to demonstrate that 13C isotopic profiles, by giving access to a larger number of parameters, offer a new tool for authenticity. Furthermore, by taking advantage of recent developments in NMR, sensitivity and resolution are improved allowing the study of smaller amounts of product. The new concept of ‘isotopomic’ can be then introduced.

Traceability and authenticity in food products: Contribution of NMR for intramolecular isotope measurements

254th National Meeting (2017)

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