• Butter-specific review of non-destructive detection tools. • Comparative analysis of major spectroscopic methods. • Chemometric validation and model transferability addressed. • Framework for practical butter authentication proposed. There is growing concern regarding butter adulteration, which impacts product quality and consumer confidence. Detecting butter adulteration usually requires extensive sample preparation and destructive testing. The methods used for these analyses are time-consuming and are not suitable for the routine analysis of large samples. The use of non-destructive analysis techniques has emerged as an effective alternative to destructive methods of detecting adulterants in butter, as they offer a rapid, reliable, and non-invasive means of testing. A comprehensive overview of the most popular non-destructive methods for detecting butter adulteration is provided in this review. Several methods are evaluated based on their principles, applications, and ability to identify common adulterants in the current study. The most common of these are margarine, lard, and vegetable oils in butter. Various methods are discussed in this review that make these techniques able to distinguish between pure and adulterated butter. The study demonstrates the advantages of combining spectroscopic techniques with advanced chemometric models to improve the quality and limits of detection in spectroscopy.
Tajdar-oranj et al. (2026) studied this question.