Progress in the application of isotopic fingerprint analysis to food origin traceability

Food geographical origin traceability provides an approach for protecting regional designation, protecting geographical indication, protecting specific character, ensuring fair competition, improving consumer confidence, and preventing diffusing of food pathogen. Isotopic analysis is an effective technology for food origin assessment, which generally adopts to various foods such as wine, beverage, dairy, meat, grain and so on. This paper reviews the basic principle of isotopic traceability, the changing mechanism of isotopes in nature, and their research development in food traceability. Object of this paper is to promote the research and application of isotopic traceability in food safety, and accelerate the foundation and improvement of food traceability system.