Recent developments and future perspectives of chiral liquid chromatography for food safety and quality

Food products are important sources of both endogenous and exogenous chiral molecules, whose chiral distri- bution must be strictly controlled to ensure and preserve food quality and safety. Indeed, as an example, chiral pesticides are often administered as racemic mixtures to plants, and while one enantiomer is active, the other may have unknown effects on the human body and could potentially pose a danger to consumers. Therefore, information about the chiral distribution of naturally occurring and artificially added compounds can help to assess food quality and traceability. This work focuses on the most relevant findings and research in the field of chiral liquid chromatography to assess food safety and quality, following the success of previous reviews published on this topic. To avoid overlapping with previous reports, the analysis covers the last three years (2020–2023).