Reference materials in support to food traceability

Traceability represents the ability to trace and follow a food and any ingredient through all the stages from production, up to the distribution and the end use. Thanks to the progress of knowledge, technologies and data processing systems, it is possible to identify markers and develop systems and analytical methods for demonstrating the origin and authenticity of raw materials and products. The application of the metrological rules to chemical and biological measurements requires more and more a wide availability of Reference Materials (RMs), which constitute very often the only way for establishing metrological traceability of the measurement results and for quantifying measurement uncertainty. In this work, an examination of the current availability of RMs for traceability of food products is reported, and the ENEA activities on the development of new RMs for food traceability are described.