ENHANCING FOOD SAFETY AND QUALITY THROUGH ISOTOPIC TECHNIQUES FOR FOOD TRACEABILITY A. Introduction

Producing safe and high quality food is a prerequisite to ensure consumer health and successful domestic and international trade, and is critical to the sustainable development of national agricultural resources. Systems to trace food or feed products through specified stages of production, processing and distribution play a key role in assuring food safety. Such traceability systems are typically based on a continuous “paper-trail” and effective labelling. However, analytical techniques that enable the provenance of food to be determined provide an independent means of verifying “paper” traceability systems and also help to prove product authenticity, to combat fraudulent practices and to control adulteration, which are important issues for economic, religious or cultural reasons.