Chlorotrimethylsilane can be used as a reagent to transform triglycerides into volatile fatty esters. The volatile esters can then be analysed by GC. The results are fully comparable to those obtained by alternative methods used worldwide. The new one-step method can transesterify acylglycerides and esterify free fatty acids at the same time. Chlorotrimethylsilane is cheaper than BF3-MeOH and is likely to permit the use of different alcohols.