In this scientific opinion, many aspects relating to the role of non-targeted spectroscopy based methods for food fraud detection are considered: (i) a review of the current non-targeted spectroscopic methods to include the general differences with targeted techniques; (ii) overview of in-house validation procedures including samples, data processing and chemometric techniques with a view to recommending a harmonised procedure; (iii) quality assessments including QC samples, ring trials and reference materials; (iv) use of “big data” including recording, validation, sharing and joint usage of databases. The spectroscopic methods considered are traditional vibrational spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging and NMR. Conclusions of this opinion indicate that the key challenges faced by the research and routine testing communities include: a lack of guidelines and legislation governing both the development and validation of non-targeted methodologies, no common definition of terms, difficulty in obtaining authentic samples with full traceability for model building; the lack of a single chemometric modelling software that offers all the algorithms required by developers.
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