A method implemented by a computer processing circuit connected to an electronic nose, for identifying a given item by an olfactory signature, the method making use of the electronic nose to obtain an olfactory signature, repeating the use of the electronic nose a first number K of times in order to acquire K olfactory signatures, making use of the computer processing circuit in order to estimate, on the basis of the K olfactory signatures, a model of the olfactory signature of the given item, acquiring, with an electronic nose of the same type, a current measurement of the olfactory signature of a current item of the same type as the given item, and comparing the current measurement to the model, in order to estimate a similarity (SIM) between the current item and the given item.