Food Chemistry 398 (2023) 133896 Available online 9 August 2022 0308-8146/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Review Recent advances in Chinese food authentication and origin verification using isotope ratio mass spectrometry Chunlin Li a , Xuming Kang b , Jing Nie a , An Li c , Mohamed A. Farag d , Cuiling Liu f , Karyne M. Rogers a, g , Jianbo Xiao e, * , Yuwei Yuan a, * a State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-products, Institute of Agro-product Safety and Nutrition, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou 310021, China b Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China c Beijing Research Center for Agricultural Standards and Testing, Beijing 100097, China d Pharmacognosy Department, College of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Kasrel Aini st., P.B. 11562 Cairo, Egypt e Department of Analytical Chemistry and Food Science, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, University of Vigo, 36310 Vigo, Spain f Beijing Key Laboratory of Big Data Technology for Food Safety, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China g National Isotope Centre, GNS Science, Lower Hutt 5040, New Zealand A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Authentication Traceability China Food products Organic Stable isotopes ABSTRACT Over the last decade, isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) using up to 5 light stable isotopes ( 13 C/ 12 C, 2 H/ 1 H, 15 N/ 14 N, 18 O/ 16 O, 34 S/ 32 S) has become more widely applied for food origin verification as well as food authentication in China. IRMS technology is increasingly used to authenticate a range of food products including organic foods, honey, beverages, tea, animal products, fruits, oils, cereals, spices and condiments that are frequently unique to a specific region of China. Compared to other food authenticity and traceability techniques, IRMS has been successfully used to characterize, classify and identify many Chinese food products, reducing fraud and food safety problems and improving consumer trust and confidence. IRMS techniques also provides scientific support to enhance China’s strict government regulatory policies. Isotope testing verifies geographical origin labelling of domestic and imported foods, protects and verifies high value foods that are unique to China, and indicates environmentally friendly farming practices such as ‘green’ or ‘organic’ methods. This paper reviews recently published Chinese research to highlight the recent advances of IRMS as a regulatory and verification tool for Chinese food products. 1. Introduction China is the world’s largest food producer and consumer, with many unique agricultural and aquatic food products due to its vast territory and varied growing climates (Chen et al., 2017). China also exports many specialty food products, such as tea, rice, garlic, meat, protected geographical indication (PGI) products and certified organic foods. In- ternational trade agreements (such as a recent agreement between China and the European Union in 2021, Chen, 2021) and regulatory demands require routine testing of food quality and safety to avoid instances of counterfeited or mislabeled food products that lead to a loss of credi- bility across different agricultural sectors both in China and overseas (Yang et al., 2016). Consequently, several analytical platforms have been developed to ensure food quality and system traceability which invoke a range of different analytical techniques including stable isotopes, elemental analysis, DNA/PCR testing, NMR, and various chemical and spectral methods combined with statistics and chemometrics (Liu, Yuan et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019; Xing et al., 2019). Over the last decade stable isotope analysis has evolved to become one of the most important tools used to combat food fraud and verify food provenance and label claims in China (Chen et al., 2017; Zhao & Zhao, 2020). Isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) is a specialized form of mass spectrometry used to precisely measure stable isotope ra- tios of carbon ( 13 C/ 12 C), nitrogen ( 15 N/ 14 N), hydrogen ( 2 H/ 1 H), sulfur ( 34 S/ 32 S) and oxygen ( 18 O/ 16 O) (Muccio and Jackson, 2009). Stable isotope technology is now commonly applied to determine the geographical origin and authenticate a wide range of food products in * Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: jianboxiao@uvigo.es (J. Xiao), ywytea@163.com (Y. Yuan). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Chemistry journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchem https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.133896 Received 18 August 2021; Received in revised form 3 August 2022; Accepted 6 August 2022