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In this study, (open access) an extraction-free loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay with a visual colorimetric readout was developed for rapid and on-site identification of pork. The reaction conditions were first optimized using purified DNA to minimize matrix interference, during which a COI-targeting primer set was selected and analytical sensitivity determined.

 For direct tissue analysis, a simple toothpick sampling approach was introduced. A sterile bamboo toothpick was inserted into the tissue sample and gently probed five times to collect material. The toothpick tip was then inserted vertically into a pre-aliquoted LAMP master mix and rotated for 10 s to release sample contents.

Tris-HCl buffer (1.5 M, pH 8.8) was incorporated to counteract matrix acidity and stabilize color development of the pH-sensitive indicator. This enabled clear color differentiation under daylight without the need for UV illumination.

The authors report that, using this toothpick sampling method, pork adulteration as low as 0.05% (w/w) was detected within 20 min requiring no specialized instrumentation. Validation with 20 commercial meat products demonstrated complete agreement between LAMP results, qPCR, and Sanger sequencing, confirming the robustness and practical suitability of this assay for field authentication of pork adulteration.

For an explanation of LAMP, see our Analytical Explainers pages.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has highlighted a new review published in npj Science of Food examining how artificial intelligence (AI) is being applied across food safety.

Based on a systematic review of more than 150 peer-reviewed studies, the paper identifies food fraud and authenticity as important areas where AI can support scientists and regulators, alongside laboratory analysis, hazard detection, surveillance and risk forecasting.

AI offers considerable potential for analysing large and complex datasets, identifying patterns and strengthening risk-based decision-making. However, the authors also highlight the importance of high-quality data, standardised metadata, transparency, explainable AI and appropriate governance if these tools are to be used reliably.

These considerations are particularly relevant to food authenticity, where increasingly sophisticated analytical technologies generate large datasets and where confidence in the provenance, quality and interpretation of data is essential.

The review was developed through collaboration between Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University & Research and FAO.

Read the FAO article.

This e-seminar provides an introduction in to how Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is used to detect exogenous sugar adulteration and authenticate honey.

The presentation explains the principles of NMR, targeted and non-targeted fingerprinting approaches, interpretation of NMR data, validation of authenticity markers, and the role of reference databases in honey analysis. It also provides practical guidance on selecting an NMR testing provider, understanding Certificates of Analysis, and recognising the limitations of database-driven authenticity assessments.

The e-seminar may be of interest to food analysts, regulators, laboratories, enforcement officers, honey producers, and anyone interested in food authenticity, food fraud detection, and analytical chemistry.

This e-seminar was produced by the Joint Knowledge Transfer Framework for Food Standards and Food Safety Analysis, which is funded by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs; The Government Chemist Program for twenty twenty-three to twenty twenty-six; The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology; The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland.

Access e-seminar.

This e-seminar has also been added to FAN's Training section.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published its latest Incident Prevention Update, highlighting recent food and feed incidents, emerging risks and practical measures businesses can take to prevent them.

The July 2026 update covers reports from May and June and illustrates the wide range of issues affecting food supply chains, including microbiological contamination, allergens, pesticide residues, non-compliant imports, unauthorised ingredients and labelling failures. It also includes examples of counterfeit and fraudulent products.

Of particular relevance to the Food Authenticity Network is the connection between food fraud, authenticity and food safety. The FSA highlights saffron as a commodity at risk from food crime, noting that fraud can in some cases create safety risks. Businesses are advised to source from reputable suppliers and maintain robust authenticity and allergen management controls.

Supplier assurance is a recurring theme. The FSA recommends reviewing supplier specifications, verifying documentation and certificates of analysis, undertaking appropriate testing and conducting due diligence on overseas suppliers. For some imported commodities, businesses are specifically advised to confirm that testing certificates are authentic and that reliable analytical methods have been used.

The scale of the wider challenge is also apparent. The FSA reports 2,073 incident notifications during 2025–26, a 14% increase on 2024–25, while root-cause analysis found that process or material issues accounted for 61% of identified causes. This increase resonates with FAN’s own monitoring of global food fraud and regulatory incidents, which has also identified a rise in reported incidents. Together, these trends reinforce the importance of strong supplier assurance, effective authenticity controls and intelligence-sharing across the food system.

Complete https://lnkd.in/ebwg3C82 to subscribe to future editions.

This information source has beenn added to FAN'sIncident Trends page.

A new study from the Food Systems Countdown Initiative (FSCI) provides a sobering assessment of progress towards transforming global food systems.

The study, published in Nature Food, represents the most comprehensive performance assessment of food systems to date, covering197 countries and 44 indicators, the study assesses performance across diets and health, environment and production, livelihoods and equity, governance, and resilience. It concludes that, for most indicators, the majority of countries are not currently on course to meet internationally agreed 2030 goals.

What this means for food authenticity

Food authenticity and food fraud prevention are part of the wider challenge of building resilient and trusted food systems. Complex supply chains, economic pressures and disruption can create vulnerabilities that increase fraud risk.

The findings reinforce the importance of early risk identification, reliable intelligence, collaboration and evidence-based decision making. For FAN, this underlines the value of bringing together industry, regulators, laboratories and academia to share expertise and strengthen food fraud prevention.

A new SSAFE Knowledge Paper, What You Need to Know About Food Additives, provides an overview of what food additives are, why they are used and how their safety and use are regulated internationally.

Of particular relevance to the Food Authenticity Network, the paper highlights that additive controls extend beyond safety. Under Codex principles, additives must not mislead consumers, disguise poor-quality raw materials or undesirable practices, or alter a food in a deceptive way.

Identity and purity are also important. International specifications help ensure that additives are what they claim to be and meet appropriate quality standards, while also helping to guard against fraud in higher-value ingredients.

Labelling is another key element of transparency. Additives used in pre-packed foods should be declared appropriately, including their function, helping consumers understand what a food contains and why an additive has been used.

The paper demonstrates the close links between food safety, authenticity, accurate labelling and consumer trust.

Read the full SSAFE Knowledge Paper to find out more.

EFSA has published its 2025 Annual Report on Emerging Risks and Horizon Scanning Activities, summarising its work to identify new and evolving threats to food and feed safety. The report includes an update on the use of food fraud information to support emerging-risk analysis.

EFSA’s FFRAUD-ER project has developed a computational model to identify food fraud incidents that may act as drivers of emerging food safety risks.

The project was completed in 2025 following model validation, stakeholder engagement and confirmation of its relevance by the EU Food Fraud Network.

EFSA reports that advanced natural language processing and machine-learning methods can effectively analyse historical food fraud data and support the identification of fraud-related emerging food safety risks.

EFSA will continue applying the model to the Joint Research Centre’s Food Fraud Monthly Reports and EU agri-food fraud suspicion reports. Methods including weighting, generative AI and logistic regression will be used to identify and prioritise potential food safety risks and support horizon scanning.

Source: EFSA, 2025 Annual Report on Emerging Risks and Horizon Scanning Activities, Supporting Publication 2026.

Food consultancy company The Acheson Group (TAG) have blogged about the current risk of corporate "identity theft" scams in the US food industry.  You can read the full blog here.  TAG provide generic mitigation advice in their blog, and promote their own consultancy services for more detailed advice.

The fraud is being focused, in particular, on Food Facility Registration information and import IEEPA refunds. Both are seeing an increasing trend of communications to food manufacturers and importers, in which the scammers are posing as government or registrar representatives to solicit secure company and personal information. This information is then used by the scammers to falsely claim government payments and refunds. 

Both the FDA and the CBP (Customs and Border Protection) are have issued warnings to the food industry.  This mirrors the trend seen around the globe, with increasingly sophisticated corporate-level fraud involving ghost companies, falsified trade documentation and traceability trails.

Thanks to FAN Advisory Board member Quincy Lissaur for flagging this warning to us.

It is an analytical challenge to differentiate natural raspberry flavouring from its synthetic analogue when testing a finished food product.  One analytical marker is α-ionone. In natural flavouring this compound is predominantly a single enantiomer (a "mirror image" structural arrangement), whilst in the artificial version it is a racemic mix (both mirror images in equal proportion).  But analytical differentiation needs specialist (chiral) chromatography columns and sometimes better sensitivity than standard aroma extraction such as SPME-GC can provide.

In this paper (open access) the authors use hydrodistillation extraction and concentration using a Clevenger apparatus.  They optimise the conditions for various sample types such as icecream and syrups.  They then couple this witht chiral GC-MS analysis.

They report that their method enables the precise separation and quantification of the R- and S- enantiomers of α-ionone, and the enantiomeric ratio is used to verify authenticity. It enabled detection of trace concentrations of α-ionone (LOD 5 × 10⁻⁴ mg/kg, LOQ 1.7 × 10⁻³ mg/kg) in various food samples, minimized solvent consumption and allowed for the accurate quantification of minor S-enantiomers without the need for isotopically labeled standards.

As a proof of concept, they applied the method to 13 commercial food samples.  They report significant differences between natural and synthetic aromas, with the majority of products containing synthetic racemic mixtures.

They conclude that their method represents a practical tool for routine control of the authenticity of raspberry aroma in foods, including heterogeneous and fat-rich matrices.

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

The annual EFSA report on their horizon scanning activities has been published here.

It primarily has a food safety focus.  Although there is a short section on Food Fraud, no specific risks or concerns are highlighted.  Rather, the report references EFSA;s ongoing use of digital (AI assisted) risk prioritisation tools to provide insight from sources such as the JRC monthly collation of food fraud media reports (resources which are all signposted on FAN's Incident Trends pages).

Agavins are a mixture of polysaccharides of various chain lengths, extracted from agave, which are gaining increasing popularity as prebiotic food supplements.  Their global market is booming.

In this survey (open access) researchers tested 12 samples of “pure agave inulin” supplements from the Mexican retail market for exogenous sugars and polysaccharides.  They used a panel of methods including HPTLC, FTIR, HPAEC-PAD, and a commercial enzymatic kit for fructan detection.  Samples were compared to in-house references and authentic samples sourced directly from manufacturers.

Each test gives complementary information, and a single test is rarely definitive.  The authors conclude that the majority of their 12 samples were adulterated in some manner, including in manners which are easier to characterise such as bulking with polydextrin (4 of the 12 samples).

With thanks to FAN member Mercedes G Lopez for highlighting this publication.

Photo by May Sermonia on Unsplash

Rarely, in the many studies verifying olive oil authenticity, is it challenged whether the PDO regulatory specifications used as authentication benchmarks are still valid.

This review (open access) examines and challenges the topic.  The authors critically evaluate EU PDO extra virgin olive oils (EVOOs) by integrated meta-analysis with bibliometric and regulatory assessment. They examine trends in scientific output, the temporal and geographical evolution of PDO registrations, and discrepancies between PDO specification limits and EU regulatory thresholds.

They report a marked increase in research activity over the past decade, primarily driven by Mediterranean producing countries, particularly Italy and Spain, with a recent shift towards sustainability and consumer-oriented studies. Currently, 115 PDO olive oils are registered in the EU, most (79%) were established before 2010, indicating limited recent registration evolution. Prediction intervals from the meta-analysis show that reported PDO EVOOs consistently outperform existing specification limits, suggesting that current thresholds may no longer capture the actual production performance and consumer needs.

They conclude that this misalignment highlights a critical gap between regulatory frameworks and production realities. Updating PDO specifications in line with contemporary evidence could strengthen their role as dynamic quality indicators, enhance product differentiation, and better support innovation and sustainability transitions within the olive oil sector.

The Food and Agriculture Office (FAO) of the United Nations & World Health Organisation have relaunched the promotion of their database of GM foods.

This public database is primarily intended as a search-tool for safety assessments of authorised GM foods. It can, however, also be used to search (by commodity, or by OECD reference number) for which GM foods are authorised in which territories, and for the traits and characteristics of different GM varieties.  We have added it to FAN's index of "authentic food" databases.

The GM Foods database is open access to read but only approved authorities can upload entries.

You can access the database here

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This monthly highlights report has been produced for FAN members by one of our Partner organisations, iComplai.

The report is an AI-generated prioritised digest.  It is blended from online regulatory and media reports of food fraud incidents and suspicions, giving a summary of each selected issue and suggested mitigation steps.

iComplai are one of a number of commercial providers of digital horizon scanning tools, many of whom are signposted on FAN on our Incident Trends hub.  We do not endorse any specific company.  We are grateful to iComplai for providing this free digest which we hope you find useful.

If you know of a tool which would be beneficial to signpost to our membership, or if you are interested in becoming a FAN Partner, then please get in touch.

The Food Fraud Prevention Think Tank (Professor John Spink's group at Michigan State University) is seeking views on the use of the term "illicit" in the context of food fraud.  This has an impact on international standardisation, as well as the framing of legislation and on the communication and lesson-learning from food fraud incidents.

See the blog here for further details.  The survey is very short (10 questions) and framed using the analagy of the shadowy organised crime gangs operating in the Lego collectables market.

A new peer-reviewed knowledge paper from SSAFE explores the opportunities, benefits and challenges of using whole genome sequencing (WGS) in food safety.

WGS is increasingly helping public health and regulatory authorities detect foodborne disease outbreaks, identify their sources and distinguish between closely related microorganisms. However, wider industry adoption still depends on overcoming technical, legal, regulatory and reputational concerns, as well as building the expertise needed to interpret results effectively.

The paper highlights broader lessons that are equally relevant to food authenticity: the value of robust analytical evidence, reliable traceability, harmonised approaches and the responsible sharing of data. [Refer also the 2021 Guidance note on NGS applications for food authenticity testing published by Defra’s Authenticity Methodology Working Group.]

Most importantly, it reinforces that complex food-system risks are best addressed through collaboration between industry, regulators, public health bodies and academia.

Read the paper: Whole Genome Sequencing for Food Safety | SSAFE Knowledge Paper

The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland have published a new horizon-scanning report examining the food innovations most likely to shape regulatory and food-safety priorities in the UK over the next 5–15 years.

Technologies including precision fermentation, cellular agriculture, molecular farming, controlled-environment agriculture and 3D food printing offer exciting opportunities but they may also create new challenges for food authenticity, traceability and consumer confidence.

The report highlights the growing importance of robust analytical methods, clear product identity and specifications, transparent supply chains, accurate consumer information and collaboration between regulators, industry and researchers.

Preparing early will be essential to ensure that innovation is supported by the evidence, controls and assurance needed to maintain trust in the food system.

Read full report here.

This is the second FAN analysis this month, as the latest  EU Agri-Food Suspicions report, for June 2026, has followed in quick succession from the May 2026 report.  You can read all of the reports here.  

As well as a marked increase in the absolute number of suspicions recorded, there has been a increasing trend in the relative numbers of suspicions relating to unlicensed trade or import (top-right green bubble).  These primarily relate to products of animal origin but not exclusively - they include anything from biscuits to noodles.  There were sometimes clear food safety risks - ranging from diversion of unfit meat, to harvesting from shellfish beds that had been closed due to algal toxin outbreaks, to repurposing of seeds (which could be pesticide-treated) for food use.

Unlicenced trade is often accociated with document or certification fraud.  There were at least 3 suspicions of foods claiming an incorrect establishment license number.

Other suspicions that caught my eye:

• a continuing trend of "traditional" meat & seafood frauds - particularly bulking of frozen products with water, or bulking of processed foods such as sausages and kebab meat
• one case of a "natural" beetroot colour ingredient being, in fact Reactive Red 198

The report also flagged 3 cases of packaged foods being seized because the picture image was misleading (i.e. a more "premium" food than actually contained).  FAN have not included this category in our analysis, but it is a reminder to all food manufacturers that their label compliance checks must include the entire artwork, not just the ingredient declaration and nutritionals.

These EU AgriFood Suspicions reports are only one information source, presenting one approach to estimating fraud frequency.  There are many other approaches, each looking at different data for different purposes.  An overview can be found on FAN's "Incident Trends" page.

 Our interpretation of the Agrifood suspicion reports is subjective. In order to show consistent trends we have excluded cases which appear to be unauthorised sale but with no intent to mislead consumers (e.g. unapproved food additives, novel foods which are declared on pack), we have excluded unauthorised health claims on supplements, and we have excluded residues and contaminants above legal limits.  We have grouped the remaining incidents into crude categories.  Our analysis is intended only to give a high-level overview

This retail survey (open access) tested samples of chips (crisps), mayonnaises and salad dressing that claimed to be manufactured with either olive oil or avocado oil.  Retail samples were purchased in California in 2025 and 2026.  Because the authors had no access to the raw material specifications for each samples, they used the more generic FAME and sterol profile criteria from Codex Alimentarius Standard for Named Vegetable Oils and Olive Oil and Olive Pomace Oils (CXS 210-1999; CXS 33-1981) which are intended to encompass expected natural variability, and they also added an arbitrary 10% tolerance to account for confounding ingredients in the recipe and for processing changes.  They also produced their own model chips and mayonnaise as controls.

They report that:

• Forty-eight out of 54 avocado oil-labelled products were inconsistent with authentic compositional ranges.
• One out of 20 olive oil-labelled products were inconsistent with authentic compositional ranges.
• Fatty acid and sterol profiles identified compositional deviations.
• Key fatty acid and sterol authenticity markers remained largely unchanged during laboratory frying and emulsification.

Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash