News

The vast majority of wasabi consumed in America is simply a mix of horseradish, hot mustard, and green dye, according to a new video from the American Chemical Society.  

In fact, about 99% of all wasabi sold in the US is fake, The Washington Post reports.

Even in Japan where most wasabi is grown, you won't have much better luck. Experts estimate that about 95% of wasabi sold in the country is an imitation. 

True wasabi is difficult to grow and extraordinarily expensive, costing $160 a kilogram at wholesale prices.

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In 2017 MoniQA Association (Monitoring and Quality Assurance in the total food supply chain) www.moniqa.org will highlight emerging issues related to 1) food authenticity and food fraud prevention and 2) food allergens and effective food allergen management. Starting with various task force meetings (25 January 2017) and an international symposium on Food Fraud Prevention and Effective Food Allergen Management 26 + 27 January 2017 http://bari2017.moniqa.org/ the MoniQA Global Food Safety Network again will strengthen its involvement in collaborative research projects, providing validated reference materials (especially for food allergen analysis), developing harmonized protocols, offering validated information and online tools and databases, as well as providing training and continuous professional development. The top 5 priorities for 2017 will include food authenticity, food allergens, antimicrobial resistance, processing and chemical contaminants (including mycotoxins), and microbiological contaminants.

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Authenticate is a cloud based technology platform, developed by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) and the Seasoning and Spices Association (SSA) in liaison with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS), which provides companies with a tool to help combat food fraud in herbs and spices.

Basic Membership to the Authenticate system is free.

Read more about it.