Italy is one of the world’s leading producers of tinned tomatoes, and the market for these products, which is of great economic importance, makes them vulnerable to potential fraudulent practices.

The aim of a recent study, carried out by a group of Italian researchers (Barilaro et al., 2025), was to verify, through the application of chemometric techniques, the possibility of using GC-IMS (gas chromatography coupled with ion mobility spectrometry) analysis to characterise tomato purées.

The data obtained from the chromatograms are subjected to chemometric classification analysis (PLSDA) to construct models capable of distinguishing samples based on the production plant, variety and region of origin of the tomato.

The results highlight that the production site is the parameter that most influences the composition of the product’s volatile fraction.