REIMS-based analysis platform for improved traceability and consumer purchase intention of high-end food products

In the last decades, a number of food crises, have threatened consumer confidence in the food industry, driving food business operators to go beyond mandatory traceability requirements and develop systems which integrate information at all stages of the supply chain. A major benefit of such a system lies in the increased marketability that can be granted to foods with verifiable quality attributes that are unique or undetectable. Rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry has recently surfaced as a highly promising technique as it allows analysis in real time, thus guaranteeing a direct quality check. At present, it has found its entrance within food analysis with a number of successful applications so far including the detection of fish fraud and the successful determination of olive oil authenticity. This project intends to apply this novel cost-effective fingerprinting technique to perform real time quality checks on high-end food products including fish (salmon, cod and tuna) and olive oil. In addition, it foresees to investigate the perceived social pressure towards buying traceable fish and olive oil, and perceived ability to find and understand additional information about the origin, authenticity and supply chain of fish and olive oil and how they influence consumer trust and purchase intentions.