Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Lebensmittelchemie

The current work of the working group focuses on the characterization of odor-relevant compounds naturally occurring in food and food raw materials and their changes on the way from the raw material to the consumer. For this purpose, a concept of so-called molecular sensory analysis has been developed, which ensures the correlation of human odor perception with analytical measurement techniques. Modern methods of structural elucidation, including micropreparative GC, GC-MS and multidimensional NMR, are used to characterize the natural substances. The synthesis of compounds and stable isotope-labeled standards is also carried out. The results obtained are used on the one hand to objectify the "food quality" parameter and on the other hand to optimize products without added flavourings.