The development of instrumental analytical techniques provided the opportunity for in-depth characterization of many food matrices. In particular, the use of gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry gives impressive results in terms of quality and authenticity testing, conducting food freshness evaluations and contamination assessments. A new variant of gas chromatography, namely two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC), and various versions of mass spectrometry have been developed since last 15 years, and they still remain at the time of their renaissance. The present critical review is focused on the use of GC × GC coupled with mass spectrometry for qualitative and quantitative reasons in food analysis. It is explained how powerful analytical tool is above-mentioned technical solution. Special attention is devoted to the issues related to the development of this technique during last years in terms of key construction elements, such as modulators and MS detectors. Finally, the critical discussion on many various aspects including advantages and more important disadvantages, caused probable moderate interest of this solution, in food analytics is concerned.
Keywords: Food analysis; mass spectrometry; two-dimensional gas chromatography.