This study (purchase required) aims to use an untargeted strategy to process SPME-GC-MS data coupled with chemometrics to identify volatile compounds (VOCs) as possible markers to discriminate Arabica coffee and its main adulterants (corn, barley, soybean, rice, coffee husks, and Robusta coffee). Reference samples were produced from roasted beans (both Aribica and Robusta) sourced directly from a large commercial coffee manufacturing site and then ground and adulterated in the researchers’ laboratory. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed the difference between roasted ground coffee and adulterants, while the Hierarchical Clustering of Principal Components (HCPC) and heat map showed a trend of adulterants separation. The partial Least-Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) approach confirmed the PCA results. 24 VOCs were putatively identified, and 11 VOCs are candidates for potential markers to detect coffee fraud, found exclusively in one type of adulterant: coffee husks, soybean, and rice. The authors concluded that these markers may be suitable for evaluating the authenticity of ground-roasted coffee, thus acting as a coffee fraud control and prevention tool.
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Detecting undeclared porcine components in processed food is a particular analytical challenge. This is because there is a large demographic of consumers who choose to avoid pork derivatives at even small concentrations in their food (e.g. for religious regions) but the act of processing often means there is little intact DNA to measure. For ingredients such as stocks and gelatines, tests are usually based on proteins rather than DNA. Two review articles have recently been published.
In this review (purchase required) aims to thoroughly assess methods for detecting proteins derived from pork and innovative biosensor technologies designed for identifying porcine DNA in food products. The authors aim to go beyond merely listing methods and technologies. They take the extra step of critically evaluating the strengths and limitations of each approach.
The article delves into the prevalent problem of detecting porcine DNA in food products within the international food processing sector. It provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of various techniques for detecting pork-based proteins. These techniques encompass electrophoresis, immunoassay, chromatography, and spectroscopy. Additionally, it explores the potential of cutting-edge biosensor technologies in identifying porcine DNA in food products. Various biosensors, including electrochemical, optical, luminescence, and colorimetric, are scrutinized for their potential impact on the industry. Finally, future trends in detection technologies related to pork derivatives are discussed. The authors conclude that incorporating micro/nanofiber and artificial intelligence into biosensors can enhance their sensitivity, accuracy, and capacity to detect and identify pork proteins in food.
In this 2nd review (purchase required, but free to IFST members) focusses on recent advances in rapid biosensors for detecting porcine DNA or proteins in gelatine. The authors discuss and evaluate biosensor methods, comparing them with various analytical methods in terms of their popularity and precision. They highlight new biosensor methods and identify a reference for a rapid, accurate, portable and simple method for gelatine detection with a low detection limit and high specificity.
Photo by Dmitry Dreyer on Unsplash
The FAN 2023 Global Food Fraud Report has been added to the 'Most Adulterated Foods' section of the website.
If you haven't read this report yet, then you can do so now and compare data for:
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023.
The aim of these reports is to:
- Assist EU Member States' authorities to identify and combat fraudulent and deceptive practices along the agri-food chain.
- Provide valuable but selected information to stakeholders of the agri-food sector to perform adequate vulnerability assessments and identify new emerging risks.
The monthly report covers food, feedingstuff, material and articles intended to come into contact, directly or indrirectly, with food, animal welfare issues for farmed animals, plant protection products, veterinary medicianal products and other inputs that may end in the form of residues and contaminants in food and feed.
Read the April report.
Abstract
Seafood fraud is commonly reported on food fraud databases and deceptive practices are highlighted by numerous studies, with impacts on the economy, health and marine conservation.
Food fraud assessments are a widely accepted fraud mitigation and prevention activity undertaken to identify possible points of deception within a supply chain.
This study aims to understand the food fraud vulnerability of post-harvest seafood supply chains in the UK and determine if there are differences according to commodity, supply chain node, business size and certification status.
The SSAFE food fraud vulnerability assessment tool was used to assess 48 fraud factors relating to opportunities, motivations and controls. The analysis found seafood supply chains to have a medium vulnerability to food fraud, with the highest perceived vulnerability in technical opportunities.
Certification status was a stronger determinant of vulnerability than any other factor, particularly in the level of controls, a factor that also indicated a higher perceived level of vulnerability in smaller companies and the food service industry. This paper also reviews historic food fraud trends in the sector to provide additional insights and the analysis indicates that certain areas of the supply chain, including uncertified prawn supply chains, salmon supply chains and food service companies, may be at higher risk of food fraud. This study conducts an in-depth examination of food fraud vulnerability relating to the UK and for seafood supply chains and contributes to a growing body of literature identifying areas of vulnerability and resilience to food related criminality within the global food system.
Read full paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-024-00272-z
The World Trade Organization has published its first report on illicit trade in food and food fraud. It includes contributions from participants in the WTO’s Annual Agriculture Symposium, held on 11 and 12 December 2023, which explored this topic.
Headlines:
- International trade has helped to reduce
global hunger, but food fraud is a growing
problem - Illicit trade in food and food fraud inflict
considerable damage to international trade
and public health - Illicit trade in food undermines global food
security and agri-food value chains - The WTO rulebook brings a legal framework
to international trade in food, helping to
combat illicit trade - Reducing import and export restrictions could
diminish incentives for smuggling and illicit
trade in food - Modern food safety legislation can minimize
the potential for fraudsters to exploit gaps in
the food supply chain - Timely, thorough investigations can disrupt
illicit trade in food and food fraud - Public–private collaboration and international
cooperation can help to combat illicit trade
in food.
Read full report.
“Maçã de Alcobaça” Portuguese apples have a Protected Geograpic Indication (PGI). The PGI encompasses the cultivars Casa Nova, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith, Jonagold, Reineta and Pink produced in the defined geographically delimited area and characterised by elevated consistency and crispness, a high percentage of sugar and high acidity, which gives them a bittersweet taste and intense aroma
For authentication analysis, reference databases based upon multivariate elemental composition have been proposed. There was concern that the databases might be invalidated by permissible changes in the fertilisation regimen. Such changes are likely, as there is a market demand for high productivity.
In this paper (open access) the authors verified that, in the case of royal gala, the PGI origin could still be verified despite variation between three common fertilisation regimens. Three different soil NPK fertilisation schemes were applied to experimental orchards within the PGI area (1 x mineral NPK proposed for integrated production, an intermediate strategy that included organic granular amendment and 2 x mineral NPK), and the elemental profiles of the apple pulps were analysed and compared.
The researchers found that some mineral elements improved their concentration in the apple pulps with fertilisation due to interactions of these elements with the fertiliser components (namely, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus) or to potential changes in the bioavailability of the elements in the soil due to fertilisation application. This gave subtle differences in the nutritional profile of the apples. However, they found that this variation did not impede the ability of discriminating PGI from non-PGI (from North Portugal and Italy) equivalents using previously-developed models. This reinforces the edaphic characteristics of the cultivation area's prevalent role over the effect of fertilisation practices or physiological trait changes, in shaping the elemental signature of the fruits. This was found to be mostly due to the high influence of geologically linked elements (such as Rb, Pb and Y) in the discrimination of the sample provenance.
They concluded that the previously-developed classification models for “Maçã de Alcobaça” PGI authenticity analysis remained robust even if fertilisation practices are applied to fight less favourable cultivation conditions.
Photo by Matheus Cenali on Unsplash
The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission have published their monthly collation of food fraud reports here. Thanks to FAN member Bruno Sechet who has again collated these as an infographic. The original infographic is on Bruno's LinkedIn feed.
The JRC collation uses global media reports, and this always gives a slightly different picture than collating official reports. FAN's recent report gives a high-level annual overview for 2023. But, whatever source of information, food businesses should always remember that there are limitations to such general collations and league-tables of "most fraudulent foods". They are only the first part of the risk assessment evidence. The more pertinent question is the specific risks in your own supply chain; the companies and ingredient sources that you purchase from.
In this study (purchase required), near-infrared spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics was validated to authenticate oat flour (from different forms of oat; oat groats, steel-cut and rolled oats) and distinguish it from common adulterants including wheat, farro, triticale, barley, rye, and ryegrass. Both unsupervised and supervised chemometric methodologies (PCA, SIMCA, and OPLS-DA) were applied. The authors reported that both SIMCA and OPLS-DA models displayed 100% sensitivity, enabling reliable identification of oat flour and detection of potential adulteration with specificity of 97.78% and 100%, respectively. Using SIMCA, samples of oat groat flour with low levels (1% and 2%) adulteration were incorrectly classified as unadulterated, but successful discrimination was achieved through the OPLS-DA model. They reported that PLS regression analysis could quantify the levels of these adulterants.
The authors validated their models using over 200 in-house test samples prepared from cereals grown at an agricultural research station. The technique was fast, non-invasive, relatively cheap and suitable for in-line use.
Graphical abstract from the paper.
There are many options for analytical techniques to authenticate edible oils. One which is less frequently reported is Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). DSC measures the thermal properties of a sample as it is heated or cooled through phase transitions, and so is an indirect reflection of its fat composition. Although crude in comparison to some analytical techniques, and unsuitable for complex mixtures, DSC has the advantage of being relatively cheap, rugged, and routinely available in laboratories that are not specialist in food authenticity testing.
This paper (open access) reviews recent applications of DSC for edible oil authentication, both with and without the use of chemometrics. Most publications cited could detect the addition at 10% and above of cheaper oils to “premium” oils such as avocado or sesame. There were also publications that could differentiate between cultivars (and, hence, origin) of extra virgin olive oil. The authors concluded that DSC is a valuable weapon in the authenticity testing armoury.
One of the most difficult challenges in authenticity analysis is verifying the species of an ingredient or component in processed products where little or no intact DNA might remain. Verifying tuna species in processed products (e.g. canned tuna) has been a perennial problem.
This paper (purchase require) sets out to address the problem by discovering and validating species-specific peptides for distinguishing three commercial tropical tuna species. The peptides derived from trypsin digestion were separated and detected using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF/MS) in data-dependent acquisition (DDA) mode. Venn analysis showed that there were differences in peptide composition among the three tested tuna species. Screening through the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (NCBI BLAST) revealed 93 candidate peptides. Finally, the detection specificity of species-specific peptides of raw meats and processed products was carried out by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode based on a Q-Trap mass spectrometer. The results showed that three, one and two peptides of Katsuwonus pelamis, Thunnus obesus and Thunnus albacores, respectively could serve as species markers.
Graphical abstract from the paper
We are pleased to acknowledge the expertise of two more specialist authenticity testing laboratories and add them to our Centres of Expertise network.
- University of East Anglia
- Chelab (Tentamus TCF2) GmbH
As well as providing incident-response support to the UK government and facilitating a laboratory network to share analytical best practice, we hope that our CoE listings help our (non-analyst) members to navigate to laboratories that could help with specific issues. Recognition as a CoE is not an endorsement by FAN, and the list is not an exclusive or exhaustive guide to commercial laboratory capabilities, but it is an acknowledgment of existing expertise and capability in highly specialist areas.
If you are a laboratory interested in applying then look out for ther 2024 call in our Newsletter later this month.
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The authors added a further weight of evidence by analysing the paired samples for mycotoxins (organic wheat in general has more mycotoxin contamination than conventional, and some mycotoxins are stable to processing) and pesticide residues analysis. For FAN’s explainer of SIRA principles, see here. Photo by Vyshnavi Bisani on Unsplash |
This paper (open access) reports the results of a structured survey of Finnish food businesses; both how they mitigate fraud risks at a corporate level and – separately – how employees view fraud risks and culture within their own company.
The first survey was targeted at representatives of Finnish food businesses operating in food production, wholesalers, and central firms (N = 98). While many food business operators (FBOs) had experience of fraudulent practices, they often thought that their businesses were well prepared to prevent food fraud. The businesses used different methods in assessing the reliability of their suppliers, such as buying from familiar businesses and using networks to gain information, but public registers, such as the Tax debt register, were rarely used.
The second survey targeting the employees of ten Finnish food production businesses (N = 691) underwent logistic regression analysis. Differences in perceived possibility of internal fraud in the business, organizational integrity, and wrongness of certain fraudulent practices were found based on respondent and business characteristics. Specialists and directors less often fully agreed on the possibility of internal fraud than workers. In addition, specialists, directors and experienced employees reported high organizational integrity more often than workers and less experienced employees.
The results highlight that food businesses should take notice of both external and internal food fraud prevention by thoroughly assessing the food fraud risks in their operations and enforcing good organizational culture.
This paper (open access) reviews trends in EU RASFF notifications for Sudan dye adulteration of palm oil. Although there was a sharp decrease in cases after the issue was first reported in 2004, and widespread testing introduced, the problem has not gone away and reported incidents have stayed steady for nearly 20 years. The economic motivation to disguise cheaper oils as palm oil using a red dye is perennial. Much of the adulterated produce originates from West Africa, and there is evidence that the problem is worst for palm oil on the local market than for exports.
The authors recommend cheaper, portable tests such as NIR as alternatives to traditional laboratory testing that can be used for verification. Although detection limits and confidence in identification cannot match techniques such as LC-MSMS, NIR can detect around 0.01-0.05% which is sufficient for economically-motivated adulteration in the crude palm oil.
Chart from the paper
The aim of this section is to explain some of the more common techniques used for food authenticity testing in plain language to give stakeholders context by which they can both choose appropriate test methods and interpret results reported in certificates of analysis. We would value your feedback (Secretary@foodauthenticity.global) on whether we have achieved this, and whether the explainers could be improved in either pitch or content.
We will be adding more methods over the next few weeks. The first to go live are Mass Spectrometry and Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis. Content was written by Mark Woolfe, and reviewed by scientists from our Centres of Expertise laboratories and the FAN Executive Team, and we are extremely grateful for their in-kind time contributions.
These explainers were one of the priorities identified by our government Funding Partners and we are grateful to them for funding their development. If you would like to join our funding partners then please get in touch.
A video guide on how to navigate to the new page is here.
The most common method for detecting the fraudulent dilution of vinegar with synthetic acetic acid is SNIF-NMR. Discrimination relies upon marginal differences in the stable isotope ratio of atoms at certain positions within the acetic acid molecular structure, dependent upon the synthetic pathway of the molecule. SNIF-NMR requires large sample sizes and long preparation times, and lacks transferability between laboratories.
Researchers have published (purchased required) an alternative method to discriminate acetic acid on a similar basis but using GC-pyrolysis-IRMS, using a sample preparation protocol that mitigates the problem of isotope-exchange with water. Although this method still uses specialist expensive laboratory equipment it is faster and more sensitive than SNIF-NMR. The authors consider the two methods to be complementary for building a body of analytical evidence.
Graphical abstract from the paper
Under new UK legislation, coming into force later this year, organisations will be liable for fraud conducted by their employees or agents. This can be employees or agents at any level of seniority. Fines are potentially unlimited - a similar law already applies to failure to prevent bribery, and a recent corporate fine was over £400m. At the same time, the Serious Fraud Office has signalled an intent to become more proactive under new leadership. There has already been evidence of this in other industries, with a recent increase in dawn raids on both business premises and the homes of Directors.
There is a “due diligence” defence against this new Failure to Prevent Fraud offence, and companies are advised to act now to ensure they have best practice mitigation in place. Good mitigation is the type of practical steps that are emphasised on FAN and all food fraud mitigation guides, including
- Review compliance policies and procedures to address gaps in relation to fraud offences
- Ensure portfolio companies have sufficient oversight/controls over their agents and other third-party intermediaries
- Provide training on fraud risks to staff so they are alert to “red flags”
- Encourage staff to speak up if they have concerns, and provide clear guidance on how they can report issues
(from Latham & Watkins legal blog)
Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash
Headlines:
- Food fraud reports published by global regulatory agencies during 2023 do not provide evidence of a consistent, significant trend during 2023.
- The activity associated with official food fraud and food safety reports remained fairly consistent across the four quarters of 2023.
- The top three commodities with the most food fraud reports varies depending on the source of reports and the tool used:
- Using official reports only, ‘Fruit, vegetables & legumes’, ‘Milk & diary products’ and ‘Beverages’ are the top three.
- Using official, media & peer reviewed publication reports, ‘Honey’, ‘Herbs & Spices’ and ‘Meat & Poultry’ are the top three.
- The number of official food fraud reports published, by an average of thirty-six sources, is very low at only ~9% of food safety reports.
- Botanical origin fraud was the most reported type of food fraud in 2023, followed by dilution or substitution, and animal origin fraud.
FAN has collaborated with the providers of three leading commercial food fraud incident collation tools (FoodChain ID Food Fraud Database, HorizonScan and Safety HUD) to produce this report, which provides a summary of global food fraud reports in 2023. This report is the first annual report to be produced for this FAN Partner project.
We are grateful to our Partners (McCormick & Company, Dr Ehrenstorfer and LGC Axio, Tenet Compliance & Litigation, the Food Industry Intelligence Network, the Institute of Food Science & Technology, SSAFE, Tesco, and BRCGS (LGC Assure)) for funding this work.
For 2024, Gold and Platinum FAN Partners will be sent a quarterly dashboard at the end of each quarter.
Read full report.
Researchers have evaluated recent developments in nutrition science, analytical technology and the continuing evolution of statutory regulations and conclude that most current international reference methods are no longer fit-for-purpose to accurately determine vitamin content in foods and food supplements.
They recommend that new and/or updated reference methods and regulatory standards should be considered for the analysis of vitamins A, D, E, K, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, C and carotenoids in foods and food supplements.
They also state that this area of nutrients may benefit from globally harmonised definitions specifying what compounds to include or exclude for analysis, and applicable bioactivity factors.
Read open access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139383
Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash
