News

Multi-needle injectors can potentially add large amounts of water rapidly to meat and fish. In order to hold in this water during freeze thawing and cooking of the meat, strong water holding agents have to be added such as salt, polyphosphates, hydrolysed collagen proteins, and vegetable gelling agents. The process can be used fraudulantly, unless the ingredients are declared according to labelling legislation. Brazilian researchers have developed a rapid method based on Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics to determine the presence of salt, sodium tripolyphosphate, and carageenan. One hundred and sixty five samples of beef injected with single, binary and tertiary mixtures of the three water holding agents were prepared. Raman spectra were run on all the samples, using 112 of them as the training set and the other 53 as the test set. The best PLS-DA model was built with 4 latent variables and successfully discriminated adulterated samples at relatively low rates of false negative and false positive results, which varied from 8.0 to 11.7%. 

Read the abstract here

Between the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2018, DGCCRF (DG for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control) carried out a survey to check the country of origin of kiwis marketed in France. Investigators focussed on one Italian company exporting kiwis into France, and by checking customs and cross-border information with Italian officials, found that the imported kiwis were marketed as French produce. This company is being prosecuted in Italy. Suspicions also were roused by phytosanitary residues found on the Italian imported kiwis, which led to another seven French companies being found incorrectly labelling the country of origin of Italian kiwis. In all, it was estimated that around 15,000 tonnes of the kiwi fruit (12% of the French kiwi market) were being sold as French produce when in fact they were grown in Italy, which because of the price differential between French and Italian kiwis, were yielding a profit of around € 6 million. Prosecutions have been initiated against these seven companies.

 Read the article here and the DGCCRF survey report in French

In this review, methods have been assessed for the identification of the most common materials used to adulterate coffee by dilution, to establish the geographic origins, the genotypes of beans, and to assess the authenticity of Kopi Luwak coffee (where beans have passed through the digestive system of an Asian palm civet cat). The current analytical difficulties in the authentication of coffee are highlighted and suggestions made to improve the situation.

 Read the abstract and full review

The study was commissioned by the Honey Integrity Task Force, an organisation made up of representatives from the entire honey industry including importers, packers, producers, marketing cooperative members and an organisation that specialises in the honey supply chain. Two sample each of 30 honeys were collected from the top selling brands, accounting for approximately 40% of the honey sold in the U.S. retail market. The labels were masked and one set each were sent to two laboratories in Germany that specialise in honey testing, QSI and Intertek. Each lab conducted two adulteration tests, the AOAC-approved 998.12, 13C-Isotope Mass Spectrometry and 13C-IRMS (EA IRMS)/ +LC-IRMS method for C4/C3 adulteration.  Both tests are well recognised methods designed to determine if any sugars were added to the honey.The results on 28 of the samples confirmed that they were not adulterated. Two of samples tested as being "adulterated". One was an imitation honey made with maltitol syrup, and the other was a blended product with both corn syrup and honey, neither were labelled as pure honey.

 Read the article here

Canada’s has announced that its long-awaited national food policy is getting $134.4 million over five years. The programme will focus on tackling food waste, improving community access to healthy food, shining a spotlight on Canadian food both at home and abroad, and increasing food security in Northern and remote communities.  Within the programme, $24.4 million is earmarked to help the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) fight food fraud. The goal will be to detect instances where food or ingredients have been deliberately tampered with or are being misrepresented. Examples of potential food fraud could also include misleading labels on food packaging.

Read the article here

Spanish authors have published a chapter in a new book - "Mass Spectrometry - Future Perceptions and Applications", reviewing the use of LC-MS (Liquid Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry) in a wide number of authenticity applications. The chapter discusses the use in targeted analysis with or without chemometrics for identifying polyphenols to authenticate different fruits, vegetables and honey. It also reviews the use of LC-HRMS (High Resolution Mass Spectrometry) with chemometrics in targeted applications identifying biomarkers in saffron, fruits, cocoa beans, spices and rice. Non-targeted LC-MS applications for metabolomics in a wide range of foods are also covered.

Read the open access chapter  

Organic products have seen a 69% increase in sales from €18.1 billion in 2010 to €34.3 billion in 2017. Following up on the ECA's Special Report No 9/2012 published in June 2012, the ECA decided in 2018 to make another audit into the EU's organic market. The latest report has just been published, and it found that the control system had improved, and its earlier recommendations had generally been implemented, but some challenges remained. In this report, the ECA makes further recommendations to address the remaining weaknesses it identified.  In particular it recommends that MSs improve the supervision of imported organic products through better cooperation, as well as to carry out more complete traceability checks. The EU imported organic products from more than 100 countries in 2018, but many products in the recent audit still could not be traced back to the producer or the process took longer than three months. In addition, the changes in the legal framework, coordination and procedures recommended previously, are not EU-wide and vary between MSs.

Organic products are marketed at prices up to 150% higher than the price of comparable conventionally produced food. This price differential drives an increase in production, but also an increase in fraud, which recent cases had shown. Mafia ties were found in Italy related to wheat imports from Romania that had been incorrectly labelled as organic. Another example of fraud was 40 tonnes of German strawberries labelled as organic, which were found to contain 25 pesticides.

  Read the article here and the ECA's full report

Kona coffee is regarded as a high value coffee. Hawaiin farmers in the Kona District produce just over 1.2 million kg of coffee beans each year, yet they have estimated that around 9 million kg of coffee beans are sold under the name "Kona". Hence the farmers have launched a lawsuit against some of largest retailers and producers in the country, which pack and sell 19 brands of Kona coffee. The farmers are accusing these companies of selling coffee with a “false designation of origin,” labelling the coffee as Kona despite containing little to no Kona beans at all. Modern isotopic techniques have been applied to confirm coffee origin in the Kona District. Blends of Kona coffee are also common. There is a law in the Kona District that requires that the name Kona can only be used if there is a minimum of 10% Kona coffee in the blend, and the percentage of Kona is declared. Although this law does not apply in other parts of the country, labelling of blends should not be misleading as to the coffee content. There is also another lawsuit filed on behalf of the consumers who have been missold Kona coffee. 

 Read the article here

The Canadian regulatory framework prohibits selling adulterated food or selling food in a false, misleading or deceptive manner. Although the number of prosecutions for food fraud cases in Canada has steadily decreased in the last decade, except for a spike in 2017, penalties are becoming more severe (i.e. 12-fold increase in fine amount between 2008 and 2018). The majority of cases are in violation with the Food and Drugs Act, Section 5(1), which prohibits “labelling, packaging, treating, processing, selling or advertising food in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to create an erroneous impression.” In the cases presented in this study, violators having been found guilty were fined between $25,000 and $1.5 million, but none were sentenced to imprisonment.

To improve control over food fraud incidents, the Canadian government should clearly define food fraud and include a definition and description of the different types of fraudulent activities. To support this, the Government of Canada should raise awareness about food fraud among members of the food industry, while requiring expanded testing of raw ingredients and final products for authenticity. A critical step is for the Canadian government to conduct a country-wide food fraud vulnerability assessment to identify the most problematic types of food fraud and then create a country-wide food fraud prevention strategy. Once the prevention strategy is in place, then the most efficient countermeasures and control systems can be considered. The holistic and all-encompassing food fraud prevention focus would be on a coordinated and optimized reduction of the entire fraud opportunity. The creation of government-industry-academia partnerships would also play an essential role in preventing and combating food fraud. It is possible that few – if any – additional government allocation will be required to put the plan in place and begin to make significant improvements.

Read full paper here.

The FDA has issued its second installment of how companies should take measures and mitigation strategies to protect themselves against intentional adulteration (IA rule), which is a requirement of the recent Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The draft document is out for consultation, which closes on 5 July 2019. The IA rule applies to the owner, operator, or agent in charge of a domestic or foreign food facility that manufactures/processes, packs, or holds food for consumption in the USA. There are some exceptions including farms, except farms producing milk. Companies are required to develop/implement a food defence plan identifying vulnerabilities, and how to deal with them, and ensure they are working. The FSMA covers attacks intended to cause wide scale public health harm to humans including acts of terrorism focused on the food supply, and these are ranked as the highest risk. There is also intentional adulteration for economic gain with or without any safety implications; acts of disgruntled employees, consumers, or competitors. The IA rule is focused on addressing only acts causing wide scale public health harm, and not acts of disgruntled employees, consumers, or competitors, or acts of economic gain without public health implications. 

Read the article and the FDA draft guidance. 

Black pepper is one of the most valued spices in the world, and hence is susceptible to adulteration. A common adulterant is black papaya seeds. Researchers in Peru and Brazil have investigated the potential of near infrared hyperspectral imaging (NIR-HSI) combined with multivariate analysis to identify black pepper adulterated with papaya seeds. SIMCA (soft independent modelling of class analogy) allowed classification with 100% sensitivity between berry black pepper and berry papaya seeds. A PLS (partial least squares) reduced model based on 7 wavelengths presented higher predictive capability, and the maps from this model successfully showed the distribution of ground papaya seeds in ground black pepper.

 Read the abstract here

Bad weather, frost and disease have crippled the Italian olive oil industry in recent months, causing a 57% drop in production over 2018 and costing the sector almost Euros1 billion. This drop means that Italian farmers only have enough olive oil for four months of the year, and may be forced to import olive oil. Freak rains and early cold temperatures affected output, along with the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa that infected trees throughout the southern region of Puglia, where ancient olive groves produce 65 percent of the national output.

In contrast, the Spanish olive crop has had a good year, and as reported in the Olive Oil Times, ‘Spanish olive oil production is expected to reach 1.76 million tons in the 2018/19 season, up from 1.39 million tons the preceding season’. Hence overall EU production of olive oil is set to remain at a similar level to last year, with Spain making up the Italian olive deficit. Outside the EU, countries such asTurkey and Tunisia are expected to have a fall in the production of olive oil, but with Morocco increasing its production by around 50 percent.

 Read the article here

Researchers have reported the development of a sensitive and reliable method of pork adulteration in beef and chicken products based on PCR–Enzyme Linked Oligonucleotide Assay (ELONA). The asssay uses species-specific tailed primers for duplex amplification, and simple dilution of the PCR reactions for direct colorimetric detection via hybridisation, eliminating the need for any other post-amplification steps. It was validated using DNA add-mixtures as well as DNA extracted from raw meat mixtures, and 0.5–1% w/w pork could be easily detected when mixed with beef or chicken. 

 Read the abstract here

Balsamic vinegar of Modena is a protected PGI name and must be made from certain grape varieties grown in the Italian provinces of Modena and Reggio Emelia. Italian investigators carrying out "Operation Global Wine" have uncovered a fraudulent use of table grapes, which are then processed and passed of as authentic balsamic vinegar. They have seized Euros15million worth of grape must and wine products, as well as numerous documents showing how the provenance and authenticity of the vinegar was falsified.

 Read the article here

Buffalo milk commands a premium price compared to cows’ milk, and is used to make mozzarella cheese. Products labelled as “buffalo mozzarella” must be made solely with buffalo milk, and not with milk from any other species. Reseachers at the Quadram Institute, Norwich have developed  a new multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mass spectrometry (MS) assay measuring the mass of ‘marker’ peptides which, due to the amino acid sequence differences, are characteristic of either buffalo or cow in α_s1-casein. The markers can also be used to give relative quantitation for mixtures of bovine and buffalo milk or cheese, based upon ratios of transition peak areas.

The method was used to conduct a pilot survey of retail mozzarella products. Eight samples of supermarket cheeses specifically labelled as buffalo were all found to be 100% buffalo. Five other samples, simply labelled mozzarella, were all 100% cow. These samples showed no signs of adulteration. However, when 17 other products such as pizzas were examined, two thirds of these samples from supermarket pizzas, restaurant pizzas and other restaurant dishes that claimed to be buffalo mozzarella contained at least some cows’ milk. In some cases, the mozzarella was 100% derived from cow.

 Read the Press Release and the full journal paper.

IFST has re-written its “Food authenticity testing” Information Statement and split it into two parts:

• Food authenticity testing part 1: The role of analysis, which now covers the role of analytical testing within the context of an overall supply chain assurance strategy.

Analytical testing is a valuable tool in the armoury to assure food authenticity but cannot be used to identify every type of food fraud.  It is only one part of an overall strategy to mitigate fraud risk.

Many modern tests are based upon comparing a pattern of measured values in the test sample with patterns from a database of authentic samples. Interpretation is highly dependent on the robustness of the database, and whether it includes all possible authentic variables and sample types. This information may not be released by the laboratory.  Interpretation of results is rarely clear-cut, and analytical results are often used to inform and target further investigation (such as unannounced audits or mass-balance checks) rather than for making a compliance decision.

This paper describes where testing can and cannot be used, and highlights generic issues relating to interpreting food authenticity testing results.

• Food authenticity testing part 2: Analytical techniques, which gives describes specific analytical techniques, their applications, strengths and weaknesses.

This paper describes the principles, different configurations, applications, strengths and limitations of some of the more common analytical techniques used in food authenticity testing:
• Mass spectrometry
• Stable isotope mass spectrometry
• DNA analysis
• Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry
• Spectroscopy.

Generic strengths and limitations of food authenticity test methods, particularly those relating to methods comparing against reference databases of authentic samples, are discussed in “Food authenticity testing: The role of analysis”. It also describes the difference between targeted and untargeted analysis.

Much needed guidelines for building and curating food authenticity databases has been published by the FoodIntegrity EU Project.

Food fraud is a global issue often detected through the use of analytical testing. Analysis of suspect foodstuffs and comparison of their results to those contained within a food authenticity database is a typical approach. This scientific opinion was commissioned as part of the FoodIntegrity EU project to provide guidance for the creation of these food authenticity databases.

This opinion paper provides what the authors believe are the most important considerations which must be addressed, when creating a food authenticity database. Specifically, the areas of database scope, analytical methodology, sampling, collection and storage of data, validation and curation are discussed.

Full paper.

A new article on food fraud public policy development for countries has been published by Dr John Spink (Director of the Food Fraud Initiative at Michigan State University) and the concepts described also apply to companies.

Abstract

Issue 9 of the Food Authenticity Network Newsletter is now available and features a foreword from Professor Chris Elliott of Queen's University Belfast.

The newsletter describes how from January 2019, the Network has transitioned from being soley government funded to a public-private partnership led by LGC. Using this vehicle, our ambition is to build a truly global Network by working with governments, industry and other stakeholders from around the world. In support of this vision, the website domain name will transition to an international domain: www.foodauthenticity.global, but we will still operate our present domain www.foodauthenticity.uk in parallel to make sure links keep working.

In this issue, there are three interesting articles as well as our Centre of Expertise Profile:

• An article on the FAO/IAEA’s new 5 year project on Authenticating High Value Foods.
• An article from Which? on its consumer and authenticity activities.
• An article that describes the latest features of the Decernis food fraud database (formerly run by USP)
• Centre of Expertise Profile, LGC; LGC is proficient across multiple techniques required for food authenticity testing, including rapid / non-targeted / point-of-use methods.