Addressing the authenticity and traceability of Spanish and Italian dry-cured ham against fraud

Background: Dry-cured ham is vulnerable to fraud due to the high profit that may be gained. Tackling dry-cured ham fraud is a complex task that involves regulatory bodies, food business operators, and scientific community. The latter has long been involved in developing science-based methods for dry-cured ham authenticity testing. Scope and approach: The present paper has been focused on Spanish and Italian dry-cured hams. An overview of the current European regulatory provisions to assure traceability and of the types of fraud in the dry-cured ham sector are provided. Moreover, cutting-edge approaches for dry-cured ham authentication are critically reviewed. Challenges and gaps to be filled to succeed in tackling deceptive practices are examined. Key findings and conclusions: A wide range of targeted techniques have been proved to succeed in characterizing different types of dry-cured hams. However, there is still a lack of reliable methods capable of authenticating the different ham categories and tracing the whole chain. Most of the analytical solutions are not implemented in business settings due to accessibility issues. Recent research efforts have addressed untargeted analytical strategies and portable equipment, both with great potential for rapid, accurate, and in situ control for routine monitoring across the chain.