Mass Spectrometry: An Essential Tool for the Flavor and Fragrance Industry

Over the past decades, mass spectrometers have become standard instruments in the analytical laboratories of the flavor and fragrance (F&F) industry. As the expansion of the fields of use of flavors and fragrances and the launch of numerous new technologies designed to enhance their performance have led to a diversification and increased complexity of the questions asked to the analytical chemists, mass spectrometry remains an essential tool to address them. The capabilities of the latest generation of instruments combined with advanced molecular separation and data processing tools allow to tackle many of these challenges. Through different examples, and focusing on the period that followed our 2014 review [1], this article illustrates different ways MS is contributing to the discovery development and commercialization of F&F ingredients and technologies, for both volatile and non-volatile molecules.