Hazelnut is one of the most important items in high-quality food products from Piedmont, Italy. The 'Tonda Gentile delle Langhe' (TGL) variety is acknowledged all over the world as the best one, and it is particularly appreciated when used to provide flavor in chocolate products. Authentication and/or traceability studies must therefore be developed to safeguard this variety against fraud, which can occur when the product is partially or totally substituted with hazelnuts of lower quality. In this work, a classification of hazelnuts from different countries is presented, showing the possibility to discriminate the TGL from other productions on the basis of the distribution of trace elements as determined by means of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), with particular reference to lanthanides. Accuracy of the sample treatment procedure was tested by analysis of biological certified materials. Data from elemental analysis were chemometrically treated with an unsupervised method, such as principal component analysis (PCA), allowing for a good discrimination among groups.

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This study is focused on the characterisation of typical salami produced in Alessandria province (North West of Italy). Seventeen small or medium salami producers from this area were involved in the study and provided the samples investigated. The aim is double and consists in obtaining a screening of the characteristics of different products and following their evolution along ripening. The study involved five types of typical salami that were characterised for aroma components and nutritional features. This approach could provide a basis for a possible PDO or PGI label request. Principal Component Analysis and cluster analysis were used as multivariate statistical tools for data treatment. The overall results obtained point out that the products investigated do not deviate from analogous European products and show the possibility of characterising by specific parameters three main groups of samples:Salamini di Mandrogne,Muletta, andNobile Giarolo; moreover some considerations can also be drawn with respect to the nutritional characterization considering the biogenic amines profile.