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The recent proliferation of tariffs on internationally-traded food has led to an increased focus on origin claims.  False origin claims can enable tariff avoidance.  On-pack claims also resonate strongly with consumers in some countries as consumers push back against the politics of tariffs and they increasingly champion home-produced food.  One of the clearest examples of this trend is in Canada.

There has been a renewed enforcement focus on “home-produced” claims in Canada.  A blog by legal firm Blake Cassels & Graydon gives a good summary of the rules and links to the primary legislation

• “Product of Canada” / “Canadian”: Vvirtually all of the ingredients, processing and labour must be Canadian. In practice, less than 2% of the ingredients can be sourced from outside of the country.  Products labelled as “100% Canadian” must be entirely made in Canada, from ingredients to processing and labour. Certain types of food, such as meat, fish and dairy, are subject to specific requirements to be labelled as a “Product of Canada.”
• “Made in Canada”: Products must have undergone their last substantial transformation in Canada. Claims must always be accompanied by a qualifying statement clarifying the origin of the ingredients, such as “Made in Canada with domestic and imported ingredients.” Even products made in Canada that contain no domestically produced ingredients can be labelled as “Made in Canada from imported ingredients” where the last substantial transformation occurs in Canada.
• “Local”: For food products to be considered “local”, the CFIA guidelines state that these must either be sold in the same province where they are produced, or within 50 kilometres if sold across provincial borders.
• Use of the Maple Leaf: Use of the stylized maple leaf from the National Flag of Canada (the 11-point maple leaf) may only be done with the permission of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The use of maple leaves other than the 11-point maple leaf is permitted on food packaging; however, depending on the context, this may be construed as a “Product of Canada” claim.
• Other Claims: More specific claims that describe the Canadian value added may be used, such as “packaged in Canada” or “brewed in Canada,” where the above claims cannot be made.

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In this paper (open access) the authors  propose two novel metrics—the Geographical Differentiation Index (GDI) and Environmental Heritability Index (EHI)—to quantify spatial variation in fatty acids and their environmental drivers. These methodologies are derived from classical genetic theory - traditional heritability quantifies the contribution of genes to traits by calculating the ratio of additive genetic variance to phenotypic variance.  The authors applied this same methodology to the fatty acid profile of oils, in order to diagnose their geographic origin.

They systematically investigated the fatty acid profiles of four main oil-rich crops (olive, camellia, walnut, and peony seed) and revealed that fatty acid distributions follow elevation- and latitude-dependent patterns, with peony seed oils showing the strongest latitudinal sensitivity. Key fatty acids like stearic acid (C18:0) and linoleic acid (C18:2) correlated significantly with geographic factors globally, while the biomass of certain specific fatty acids varies significantly in high-altitude/low-latitude regions. They conclude that their findings establish specific fatty acid signatures as a robust tool for geographic authentication. They provide a chemical rationale for classification models, based on Machine Learning, that measure differences in fatty acid profiles.

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Around 80% of the seafood consumed in the UK is imported. Much of it comes from Norway, Iceland, Vietnam, and more countries.

In the latest issue of Food Science and Technology, Ivan Bartolo explores the UK’s reliance on imported seafood, driven by consumer preferences, global supply chains, and the demands of fish processing factories.

The article also explains how food safety is maintained, how the country determines the origin of seafood, and the environmental and resilience challenges associated with these imports.

Access full article: https://doi.org/10.1093/foodst/vwaf044

Authenticity tests for coffee tend to focus on the variety (Arabica vs Rustica) or adulteration of roasted ground coffee (e.g. with chicory).  There has been relatively little focus on authenticating the origin of green beans, for example to underpin Fair Trade traceability.

Proteomics has previously shown differences among cultivars.  This paper (subscription required) built on previous studies that had showed that long-term adaptation to a distinct climate (associated with the geographical location), are likely to significantly affect various metabolic processes and thus protein profiles.  Most proteins in beans are likely to be enzymes, such as oxidases and peroxidases. Previous researchers had identified 531 proteins in C. arabica cultivars in high-altitude African and low-altitude South American samples. Further analysis pointed out that only a few proteins were significantly different between them, plausibly corresponding to the concentration of certain compounds (e.g., flavonoids) alongside the adaptation to the environmental niches (e.g., colder climate or predominant pathogens). Post-harvest processing modifies proteomic profile.

This study used a combination of proteomic profiling with linear discriminant analysis for the classification of the geographical origin of green specialty coffee beans from well-known harvesting regions in Central America, South America, Africa, and Asia. Out of 1596 identified proteins, the authors selected the top 30 target markers ranked by ANOVA. They report that the model's prediction performance using leave-one-out cross-validation reached 85.3 %, with the lowest accuracy in the prediction rate for Asian samples. Model performance and prediction sensitivity to random states were tested using 5-fold cross-validation. After 20 iterations, the model performance slightly decreased to 84.0 %. Specificity and sensitivity confirmed that the model appears to be reliable at distinguishing Asian and African samples.

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This study (open access) used Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) ratios of key signals to differentiate the origin of Peppermint Essential Oil (PEO) as well as for the identification of adulterants in commercial PEO samples. Comprehensive analyses of 1D and 2D NMR spectra allowed for the identification of characteristic ¹H NMR signals associated with the key components of PEO.  Signals were assigned for 12 key components.  Significant compositional variations between PEOs from different geographical origins were revealed.

The US and India are the two primary production regions for PEO.  The model was built from authentic PEO samples of US origin (18),  India origin (15), twenty-seven blended PEO (US/India) samples and five de-mentholized cornmint (Mentha arvensis) oils.  All reference samples were collected by the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR), University of Mississippi.

To facilitate differentiation, a straightforward indicator ratio method was developed to distinguish between PEOs from the United States and India.

A total of 50 commercial PEO samples were evaluated using the indicator model.  These included forty-three samples claiming to be pure PEO and seven claiming to be premium or therapeutic grade PEO.  They were purchased from various domestic and international suppliers of the US market

Results indicated a high adulteration rate (42 %). Adulterants, including synthetic chemicals, de-mentholized cornmint oil, and lower-cost oils, were identified.

The authors conclude that NMR is a useful tool for quality assessment and authenticity testing of essential oils. The methodology presented may also be extended to other essential oils to ensure product integrity.

For an explanation of the principles of NMR see FAN's introductory guide.

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In this study (open access), researchers set out to discriminate Royal Gala and Golden Delicious apples as being either Czech or Polish origin.  They built a reference database of 64 samples were collected in the years 2020–2022 from Central Bohemia  Eastern Bohemia, South Moravia, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Łódź Voivodeship, and Masovian Voivodeship.  They measured phosphorus (P), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), boron (B), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and iron (Fe) as well as isotope ratios ¹⁰B/¹¹B and  ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr.

They concluded that, with this data set, it was not possible to robustly differentiate Czech vs Polish origin.  The variation within individual regions, and the variation due to different agricultural inputs, was too significant compared to the variation between countries.  They concluded that differentiation would be possible in principle but a much more granular reference database would be needed.  Their findings contradicted previous published work that phosphorus was a suitable marker to differentiate Czech from Polish apples.

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Animal origin food products, including fish and seafood, meat and poultry, milk and dairy foods, and other related products play significant roles in human nutrition. However, fraud in this food sector frequently occurs, leading to negative economic impacts on consumers and potential risks to public health and the environment. Therefore, the development of analytical techniques that can rapidly detect fraud and verify the authenticity of such products is of paramount importance.

Traditionally, a wide variety of targeted approaches, such as chemical, chromatographic, molecular, and protein-based techniques, among others, have been frequently used to identify animal species, production methods, provenance, and processing of food products. Although these conventional methods are accurate and reliable, they are destructive, time-consuming, and can only be employed at the laboratory scale. On the contrary, alternative methods based mainly on spectroscopy have emerged in recent years as invaluable tools to overcome most of the limitations associated with
traditional measurements. The number of scientific studies reporting on various authenticity issues investigated by vibrational spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and fluorescence spectroscopy has increased substantially over the past few years, indicating the tremendous potential of these techniques in the fight against food fraud.

This manuscript reviews the state-of-the-art research advances since 2015 regarding the use of analytical methods applied to detect fraud in food products of animal origin, with particular attention paid to spectroscopic measurements coupled with chemometric analysis. The opportunities and challenges surrounding the use of spectroscopic techniques and possible future directions are also be discussed.

Read full paper here.