Critical assessment of recent trends related to screening and confirmatory analytical methods for selected food contaminants and allergens

Abstract

Food contaminants monitoring is conducted in an intensive manner yet, there are still food safety scandals related to various chemical compounds. This fact highlights the need to review the requirements posed by the current legal framework on analytical methods performance and evaluate its application in published studies. Herein, we present an inventory including more than 470 publications on screening and confirmatory methods, which were used to control hazardous compounds such as pesticides, antibiotics, mycotoxins, aquatic toxins and allergens. Analytical performance characteristics, trends and state of the art, both merits and shortcomings, are critically discussed and summarized in excel tabulations. This repository highlights the ever-increasing use of screening methods and the necessity to confirm their performance by applying confirmatory methods. In conclusion, more effort is needed on validation and benchmarking, especially of newly developed technology such as smartphone-based methods, to avoid false-negative results and ensure that methods fit for purpose. © 2019 The Authors