Abstract
Developing instruments against food fraud and adulteration as well as for the preservation of quality and authenticity of food have become major interests in the agro-industrial supply chain in the past years. Herein, authenticity and quality of milk and dairy products plays a fundamental role to overcome such concerns. At the present time, milk profiling is used as a benchmark to assess the authenticity and quality of milk. Advanced analytical techniques such as high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HPLC-HRMS) have become invaluable to fully characterize the composition of milk. The aim of this PhD thesis research is to apply HPLC-HRMS to study markers for quality and authenticity analysis of mountain milk and milk products. The final goal is to achieve a better understanding of chemical reactions in milk and to provide fast and reliable methods for milk analysis.