Food Quality and Safety, 2018, XX, 1–13 doi:10.1093/fqsafe/fyy017 Review Review Fraud investigation in commercial coffee by chromatography Víctor de Carvalho Martins,*,** Ronoel Luiz de Oliveira Godoy,*,** Ana Cristina Miranda Senna Gouvêa,** Manuela Cristina Pessanha de Araujo Santiago,** Renata Galhardo Borguini,** Elaine Cristina de Oliveira Braga,**,*** Sidney Pacheco** and Luzimar da Silva de Mattos do Nascimento** *Departamento de Tecnologia de Alimentos, Instituto de Tecnologia, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, CEP 23890-000, Seropédica-RJ, Brazil, **Laboratório de Cromatografia Líquida, Embrapa Agroindústria de Alimentos, CEP 23020-470, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil, ***Centro de Tecnologia, Instituto de Química, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, CEP 22290-180, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil Correspondence to: Víctor de Carvalho Martins. E-mail:
[email protected] Received 7 March 2018; Revised 15 May 2018; Editorial decision 28 May 2018. Abstract Coffee is currently the second largest commodity on the world market today, and there is great concern about the quality of the beans exported from producer countries to Europe and USA. Practices such as using blends of different species and adding low-cost raw materials, such as chicory, corn, and soybean, impair the sensory and functional characteristics of the drink made from roasted and ground coffee beans. There is a need to adopt more efficient analytical methods than the microscopy technique currently used. The first chromatographic method used to determine fraud