Food for chemometrics

Food science forms a rich source of applications for chemometrical methods, ranging from authentication to profiling and biomarker selection. Samples are often measured in a high-throughput manner, putting constraints on the types of data analysis, in the sense that manual tuning is to be avoided as much as possible. At the same time, the large number of samples allows for more powerful methods to be employed. In this paper, I will present an overview of some applications at Fondazione Edmund Mach, focusing on the analysis of fruits that are of large economic importance locally, such as apples and grapes, and of food products such as cheese and wine. As an example of methodological research fed by the richness of available data, I will present recent results on biomarker selection, adressing the need for more objective cutoff values and more robust selection schemes.