Towards real-time pork breed and boar taint classification using rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry

To help counteract food fraud and meet consumer expectations, the pork industry requires reliable quality-monitoring and traceability systems. In this context, rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry (REIMS) could be rolled out as a real-time, accurate metabolic fingerprint-based classifier of pork meat characteristics and quality issues, such as genetic origin and boar taint. Here, fingerprinting of >3000 pig neck fat samples enabled highly accurate pig breed classification (pairwise comparison of Commercials (Pietrain × Hampshires × Durocs, Large-Whites, Durocs), Hampshires and Large-Whites, where data modelling using support vector machine (SVM, all pairwise comparisons > 89%) and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA, >90%) outperformed random forest (RF, 72.0-79.5%). Boar taint classification showed comparable results between OPLS-DA, RF and SVM (93.5-96.0%), but it was important to apply strategies to avoid false negatives and positives, including the construction of balanced models (tainted vs. non-tainted).