Citation: Cardin, M.; Cardazzo, B.; Mounier, J.; Novelli, E.; Coton, M.; Coton, E. Authenticity and Typicity of Traditional Cheeses: A Review on Geographical Origin Authentication Methods. Foods 2022, 11, 3379. https://doi.org/10.3390/ foods11213379 Academic Editors: Andrea Marchetti and Simona Sighinolfi Received: 3 October 2022 Accepted: 22 October 2022 Published: 26 October 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). foods Review Authenticity and Typicity of Traditional Cheeses: A Review on Geographical Origin Authentication Methods Marco Cardin 1,2 , Barbara Cardazzo 1, *, Jérôme Mounier 2 , Enrico Novelli 1 , Monika Coton 2 and Emmanuel Coton 2 1 Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padova, Viale Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD, Italy 2 Univ Brest, INRAE, Laboratoire Universitaire de Biodiversité et Écologie Microbienne, F-29280 Plouzané, France * Correspondence: barbara.cardazzo@unipd.it Abstract: Food fraud, corresponding to any intentional action to deceive purchasers and gain an undue economical advantage, is estimated to result in a 10 to 65 billion US dollars/year economical cost worldwide. Dairy products, such as cheese, in particular cheeses with protected land- and tradition-related labels, have been listed as among the most impacted as consumers are ready to pay a premium price for traditional and typical products. In this context, efficient food authen- tication methods are needed to counteract current and emerging frauds. This review reports the available authentication methods, either chemical, physical, or DNA-based methods, currently used for origin authentication, highlighting their principle, reported application to cheese geographical origin authentication, performance, and respective advantages and limits. Isotope and elemental fingerprinting showed consistent accuracy in origin authentication. Other chemical and physical methods, such as near-infrared spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance, require more studies and larger sampling to assess their discriminative power. Emerging DNA-based methods, such as metabarcoding, showed good potential for origin authentication. However, metagenomics, providing a more in-depth view of the cheese microbiota (up to the strain level), but also the combination of methods relying on different targets, can be of interest for this field. Keywords: cheese; geographical origin; authentication; next-generation sequencing; volatilome; isotopic analysis; trace element analysis; infrared fingerprinting 1. Introduction The shared definition of food fraud relates to intentional illegal acts performed by food value chain operators for economic gain [1]. More specifically, in the framework of the European agri-food chain legislation, food fraud is defined as “any suspected intentional action by businesses or individuals for the purpose of deceiving purchasers and gaining undue advantage therefrom, in violation of the rules referred to in Article 1(2) of Regulation (EU) 2017/625” [2]. Behind the term “food fraud”, multiple practices designed to deceive purchasers, which are categorized under the following denominations: (i) substitution, (ii) concealment, (iii) dilution, (iv) unapproved enhancement, (v) counterfeit, (vi) grey market/forgery, and finally, (vii) mislabeling, exist. Substitution corresponds to total or partial replacement of a food, including ingredients or nutrients, with one of lower value. Concealment hides the low quality of food ingredients or food products. Dilution is self- explanatory and corresponds to the action of mixing a high-value ingredient with a lower one, while unapproved enhancement improves food quality by adding undeclared or un- known ingredients. These four food fraud types are grouped under the term “adulteration”. Counterfeit refers to the infringement of Intellectual Property Rights via replication of a product or its packaging, while grey market or forgery corresponds to production, theft, Foods 2022, 11, 3379. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11213379 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods