Electronic nose has played an active role in food safety because of its fast， nondestructive， and convenient features. This paper reviews the application of electronic nose technology in food safety control in the past five years， including freshness monitoring and shelf life prediction， pesticide residue detection， pathogenic microorganism and toxin detection， adulteration and counterfeiting detection， as well as allergen identification. The integration of other detection methods is compared， existing problems are analyzed， and the development trend is prospected.