Research Progress of Traceability Technologies for Large-Scale Geographical Specialty Food Origins

The geographical authenticity of high-value specialty foods is crucial to safeguarding regional economies, cultural heritage, and consumer trust amid escalating global trade and sophisticated food fraud. However, counterfeit behaviors exploit vast geographic distances and regulatory disparities to facilitate falsification of large-scale geographical specialty food origins, amplifying the risk of economically-motivated origin fraud. Consequently, based on the theory of spatial scale adaptation, we critically evaluate seven advanced analytical techniques – mineral element analysis, spectroscopy, stable isotope analysis, intelligent sensory systems, DNA fingerprinting, ambient ionization mass spectrometry and information technologies – for their suitability in origin authentication across provincial, national, and continental scales. These methods demonstrate high discrimination accuracy (>85%-100%), yet challenges remain regarding cost, standardization and scalability. We further discuss policy relevance and practical applications, and propose a machine learning-enhanced geospatial multi-omics framework to improve traceability. Reducing costs, constructing standard databases and formulating unified traceability certification protocols towards global promotion are the future trends of large-scale origin certification.