NMR has been used for the authenticity of wines for over 30 years, but has evolved significantly in the last two decades. It was developed as the official method for added water and sugar to wine, but its use in metabolomics gives a lot of information on grape varieties, cultivation techniques and vintage. NMR can also yield information on geographic origin.
Read the full open access paper.
Natural vanilla flavour from the vanilla pod is an expensive product, and many manufacturers use synthetic vanillin to flavour their products. In the US, there has been a proliferation of class action lawsuits against manufacturers using "vanilla" in the name of the food e.g. vanilla ice-cream. This has been on the basis that most manufacturers using vanilla in the name of the food are not disclosing the true source of the vanilla flavour to consumers. A third of the cases were dismissed, and many more are pending dismissal, but one case was settled for $3 million.
Read the article for the full story
The Food Authenticity Network Newsletter January 2021 is now available (in the documents section). There is lots of information about the progress of our global Network and upcoming activities, as well as articles on blockchain and an inter-laboratory trial on handheld infrared instruments. Our Centre of Expertise profile is the Asset Centre at Queens University Belfast.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued an alert on 18 January warning consumers, who had purchased meat products supplied by a Wiltshire fresh meat vendor via Facebook sites, not to consume them. The meat products (predominantly lamb, goat, veal, beef), of all meat species, were supplied by an unregistered and unapproved Wiltshire based vendor, and had not been produced in accordance with food safety and hygiene legislative requirements.
Read the FSA alert and the news article.
Herbs and spices have been shown to be the group of foods most susceptible to adulteration. This extensive review by Polish researchers examines the application of different types of NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) combined with chemometrics to characterise and distinguish authentic and adulterated spice samples.
Read the full open access paper
Maple syrup, the concentrated sap of Acer saccharum March, is sought after for its unique flavour and taste. As a popular and high value product, it is increasingly susceptible to adulteration by other sugar syrups. This review looks at most recent advances in the analytical methods used for detecting the different types of maple syrup adulteration.It concludes that SpectrAcer and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are the most efficient methods for detection of maple syrup adulteration. SpectrAcer, an automated spectroscopy sytem developed by the Canadian company Acer, based reflected light at different wavelengths using the syrup's fluorescence properties with UV, and sugar composition at other wavelengths.
Read the abstract here
Prawns and shrimps are high value seafood vulnerable to species substitution. Indian reseachers have developed uniplex PCR assays using species specific primers based on the mitochondrial 16S RNA and Internal Transcriber Spacer (ITS1) genes for 7 commercially important prawns and shrimps (Penaeus vannamei, Fenneopenaeus indicus, Penaeus monodon, Macrobrachium rosenbergii, Metapenaeus affinis, Heterocarpus gibbosus,and Penaeus semisulcatus). The specificity of the primers was confirmed using targeted prawn and shrimp species and untargeted fish species. The developed assays were tested using 68 purchased prawn and shrimp products, and found that 16% of the samples were mislabelled.
Read the abstract here
In June 2020, there was an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 at a Beijing market. The virus was found on the chopping bords of imported frozen Norwegian salmon, which caused a hasty removal of imported salmon from supermarket shelves. Also, earlier in January, the Chinese authorities reported that coronovirus was found in ice cream made with ingredients from New Zealand (milk powder) and Ukraine (whey powder).
This article discusses whether it is likely or not that the virus can be transmitted along the food chain, especially the cold chain, as now several peer reviewed articles by Chinese researchers claim.
Read the article here
This new CFA Guidance produced in collaboration with Food Standards Scotland, aims to raise awareness of the need to use analytical laboratories with the right expertise, accreditations, using appropriate methods and facilitate development of partnerships between such third-party laboratories and their customers in the food industry, moving away from purely transactional arrangements.
Download this free guidance here.
This guidance has also been added to the Quality section of the Food Authenticity Network under 'Guidelines'.
A study of the grain trade during 2020 indicates that policies to protect supply chains must be enacted to avoid supply chain shocks such as COVID-19 and locust swarms exacerbating food insecurity in global regions that rely on food imports.
Food insecurity is complex — there is no silver bullet of policy or market intervention that can lead to a situation where all people at all times will have continuous access to healthy, affordable diets. And though global food systems are interdependent and also complex, food insecurity in many regions has been precipitated by pestilence, environmental disaster and conflict. Pestilence is a fatal epidemic or pandemic disease affecting humans, crops or livestock that impacts food supply and production; insect and rodent plagues remain a major threat to human food security1,2,3,4,5. Recently, swarms of locusts larger than any recorded in recent decades detrimentally affected more than 330,000 hectares of land from Ethiopia to India6, whilst the COVID-19 pandemic — and the controls implemented to curb infection rates — affected food production and supply3.
In times of crisis, the demand for staple foods increases in ways that can destabilize local and global supply chains and cause social unrest3,7. In this issue of Nature Food, Falkendal et al.8 quantify wheat, rice and maize supply chain disruption from 2020 locust swarms and COVID-19-related effects on food prices, stock levels, international trade and export restrictions. The study considers two dimensions of food security, first outlined nearly a quarter of a century ago at the World Food Summit in 1996, namely: physical availability of food (production output, stock levels and trade dynamics) and economic and physical access to food (the ability to buy food, for example, ratio of prices to income, and accessible marketing channels). The authors frame their argument in terms of stability and the socio-economic shocks (political instability, unemployment and drastic loss of income) that the COVID-19 pandemic brings with it that will lead to greater food insecurity in the short and medium term.
In their model, Falkendal and colleagues find that export restrictions and precautionary purchasing in response to COVID-19 could destabilize global grain trade, leading to many low- and middle-income countries that rely on grain imports potentially experiencing further food insecurity that exacerbates the effects felt from shocks such as COVID-19 and locust swarms. Thus, protectionist measures initiated by governments, institutions or market actors to secure national food security will affect those who are food vulnerable, and consumer support policy measures should be introduced to mitigate the risk of food insecurity. The authors call for incremental rather than blunt, binary ‘borders open or borders closed’ food security policies, and a need for mutually agreed solutions to address food insecurity — rather than unilateral national decision-making based primarily on self-interest. Whether altruist or self-serving food security policies are implemented by governments and market actors will be demonstrated in practice over the coming months.
The impact of economic stabilization policies following the 2007 economic crash highlights how individuals and households can transition instantly from a higher standard of living into a situation where they must survive with less, raising the question as to what is the minimum standard for an acceptable life9. In the UK, the last time minimum standards with regard to food for an acceptable life were determined was the food rationing legislation on 15 September 194110 — the Hansard report makes challenging reading when comparing the proposed austere diet to our typical food consumption in the UK. The UN Sustainable Development Goals also determine the dynamics of an acceptable life, and multi-level consensus building and action is essential to safeguard food supply – especially if, as a global community, we seek to deliver the two targets of “no poverty and zero hunger”. Despite having policy and technological tools to reduce the impact of many human, zoonotic and plant diseases, collective strategic risk at local, regional and global levels cannot be ignored. Falkendal and colleagues have shown that a proactive strategy and a co-ordinated collective response with shared goals and co-operative actions is necessary as the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and natural events such as locust swarms arise in order to ensure that the grain trade remains stable, equitable and accessible to all.
This fully funded Ph.D project, supported by Quadrat's Doctoral Training Programme, is supervised by Dr Tassos Koidis, IGFS/Queens University Belfast, in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen and local industry organisations in Malaysia. The project will be examining the development of new methods of authenticating sustainable oil palm for the protection of tropical diversity. The candidate for the research project should have an interest in earth and agricultural sciences, laboratory experience including instrumental analysis and method development, background in statistical analysis, fluency or willingness to learn a programming language.
More details for applicants here
The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has published its December 2020 Food Fraud Monthly Summary reporting food fraud incidents and investigations from around the world. Thanks again to our Member Bruno Séchet for creating this infographic and allowing us to share it with the rest of the Network
Read the December 2020 Summary here
Prawns and shrimps (small prawns) are the world’s most popular shellfish. High demand for prawns leads to intensive farming, which can lead to bacterial disease problems. To prevent bacterial disease and promote growth, antibiotic drugs are frequently used. US Researchers in Louisiana took 56 prawn samples in late 2016 and early 2017 from a variety of local retail outlets, and all the prawns were raised by aquaculture and imported from India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Bangladesh and Ecuador. The samples were analysed for the presence of veterinary drug residues (oxytetracycline, nitrofurantoin, chloramphenicol, fluoroquinolone and malachite green) using ELISA test kits. Additional screening with the Alert sulfite detection kit was used to determine if sulfite residue was over the US legal limit of 100 ppm.
Screening analysis revealed that samples were positive for nitrofurantoin (70 % of samples), malachite green (5 %), oxytetracycline (7 %), and fluoroquinolone (17 %). Malachite green, oxytetracycline and fluoroquinolone are all banned in the US, and nitrofurantoin, an antibiotic growth promoter, has been banned in the EU since 1995. No samples contained chloramphenicol residues. Using LC-MSMS validation, one sample tested positive for 60 ppm of oxytetracycline and 4 ppb of ciprofloxacin. Almost half the 51 samples tested positive for sulfite residue (45 %), but were within the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) limit (10−100ppm, with one sample was greater than 100ppm).The rest were less than 10ppm of sulphite However, sulfites were not listed on any of labels of the 51 tested packages of imported prawns.
Read the article or the open access full paper.
Venison is high value meat. Chinese researchers have developed an innovative assay which combines PCR (polymerase chain reaction) amplification of venison DNA with a lateral flow immunoassay (LFI) to visualise the PCR product. The PCR amplification used a 277 bp fragment of a venison mitochondrial DNA D-loop region, and the PCR products labelled with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and biotin were examined using a paper-based LFI strip within 5 min. The assay gave a high specificity for venison with no cross-reactivity to 17 animal and 2 plant species, and enabled the detection of raw, oven-heated, and fried venison in binary mixtures with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.01% (w/w), In addition, the PCR-LFI test was applied to 15 commercial venison products, and the results were validated by PCR agarose gel electrophoresis.
Read the full paper here
The Spanish Civil Guard (Guardia Civil), supported by the French Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie Nationale) and Europol have dismantled an organised crime group involved in the production, distribution and sale of alleged organic pistachios which did not meet required ecological standards.
The operation began in 2019, with various reports of ecological certifications being misused on pistachios that did not adhere to set agricultural standards. The Spanish Civil Guard detected a mix of organic and non-organic pistachio nuts that contained pesticides (including glyphosate and chlorate), illegal under requisites imposed by the Spanish agricultural sector.
The investigation uncovered that the illegal pesticides were being used to better the quality and quantity of the harvests and increase the monetary value of the production. Marketed as organic the nuts were sold for up to 80% over the retail price of non-organic pistachios. The nuts from the main Spanish distributor were also being sold in France under false organic certifications.
Read full article.
Basmati rice is a high value rice because of its unique organoleptic properties, and hence is vulnerable to adulteration by non-Basmati varieties. Authentication of Basmati rice has been based on specific varietal identification using DNA markers - microsatellites or more recently KASP markers. Pakistan has designated a specific geographical region for Basmati varieties to be grown and applied to the European Commission for PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status of its Basmati rice.This study develops a method based on elemental analysis with chemometrics to differentiate rice grown inside and outside the recognised Basmati growing region. Sixty-four rice samples were collected from the Punjab region of Pakistan, 21 from the PGI region and 43 outside this region. Elemental analysis by ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry) of 71 elements was performed on the samples and combined with DD-SIMCA (data-driven soft independent modelling by class analogy) for the differentiation of Pakistani rice grown inside and outside the PGI Basmati growing region, The model obtained achieved a sensitivity and specificity of 100% and 98%, respectively.
Read the abstract here
We're pleased to say that FoodAuthenticity is now officially at www.foodauthenticity.global.
Site members may need to sign again in to the .global site, as browsers with saved passwords will not transfer the saved password automatically.
We will be maintaining foodauthenticity.uk to redirect automatically to the new .global address, but please remember to use the .global address in referring to the site.
In the US, hemp plants (Cannabis sativa) that produce delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) in amounts higher than 0.3% are classed as cannabis, and lower amounts than 0.3%, as hemp. THCA is the precursor of the psychoactive delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that forms from its oxidation. At present, confirmatory testing whether a sample is cannibis or hemp has to be carried out in a certified laboratory by HPLC, which is time consuming and labour intensive. US researchers have developed a rapid portable, confirmatory, non-invasive and non-destructive approach for cannabis diagnostics that could be performed by a police officer using a hand-held Raman spectrometer.
Samples were taken from both hemp plants and 3 varieties of cannabis plants, and the latter were frozen at −10 to −15 °C and thawed, which is the standard procedure in cannabis farming that is used to preserve cannabinol content of plants during their post-harvest processing. The Raman spectra were analysed using orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) to determine the spectral regions giving the best separation between the two classes especially for THCA. The chemometric model showed 100% accuracy in determining whether a sample was hemp or cannabis, and further modelling gave a prediction rate of 96-100% in identifying the three cannabis varieties.
Read the full open-access paper
The Network Team would like to wish you all a happy New Year, and a healthy and successful 2021.
This article reports a recent webinar to discuss the role of NMR in the non-targeted authenticity analysis of wine, and in particular Spanish wine. The NMR analysis is able to identify and quantify several hundred compounds present in the wine. Reference databases have been built up of these compound profiles using authentic wine, and these are used on wine samples to verify whether they are authentic or not. The method has been adopted by the Estación Enológica de Haro (EEH) part of the Institute of Vine and Wines Sciences in La Rioja, which serves the wine industry across Spain, and analyses 25,000 samples annually and conducts around 263,000 analyses every year from private clients.
Read the article here
