A direct link to the newsletter is here.

Thanks again to FAN member Bruno Sechet for formatting the JRC monthly report of food fraud media stories as an infographic.  You can register to receive JRC's report directly by e-mail here.  It is usually published in the 2nd week of the following month.

Aptamers are short, single stranded sections of DNA or RNA that can selectively bind to a protein or similar biochemical molecule.  They are, theoretically, an ideal basis for species tests; unlike PCR, they could underpin a test for highly processed products that was also faster, cheaper, and more suited for point-of-use kits.

To date, there is no published porcine-specific aptamer that is specifically bound to a heat-stable protein. This study (purchase required) has taken some important steps along the way, but also highlights the challenges.  The authors screened, characterised and validated aptamers bound to any pork protein through the SELEX process, combined with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. The putative porcine-specific aptamers were selected after fourteen rounds of selection using centrifugal-ultrafiltration separation technique against five negative controls. The best candidate had a binding affinity with a dissociation constant of 27.61 ± 1.92 nM.  However, the selected porcine-bound aptamers were not specific and could also bind to multiple proteins from negative samples. LC-MS analysis showed that the aptamers bound to troponin and tropomyosin subunits, and these proteins have potential as target markers for future authentication studies. The authors conclude that future research could develop aptamers with higher specificity towards porcine protein which could be used as a practical tool for food authentication in real meat-based food samples.

Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash

Basmati rice is a defined term in the UK with a strict technical specification and legally-established trading goodwill. In 2017 an EU trademark application was made to use “Basmati” on a rice variety that does not meet this specification.  The application was supported by the EU Intellectual Property Office.  The application was opposed by a UK rice importer acting as a proxy for the Indian government export agency (because the Indian government has no direct recourse to the EU courts).  The case is still ongoing and is now complicated by the fact that – since EU exit – it could also be argued that the UK proxy has no recourse to the EU courts.

The EU Advocate General has just ruled that the objectors have a valid case and that they still have recourse to the EU courts.  The case can proceed to the Courts of Justice.

Read the analysis by the legal team acting for the Indian government’s representative here. 

This review article assesses meat authentication techniques based on DNA, protein, and metabolite fingerprints of animal meat species for their applicability to cultured meat.  Theu authors discuss areas in the cultured meat industry that are vulnerable to food fraud. They consider that none of the traditional techniques adequately addresses all of the authentication questions likely to be asked.

The authors recommend the identification of markers (both physical and biochemical) to differentiate conventional meat from cultured meat in order to ensure overall product traceability.  Technique-based categorization of cultured meat products could ease the identification of appropriate authentication methods.

The authors conclude that novel technologies for novel foods, such as cultured meat, need a different approach in terms of authentication methods. The increasing production efficiencies of cultured meat companies should be coupled with increasing regulatory support to protect them from the threat of sham products undermining their market. Cultured meat authentication is essential and must be considered because, in the future, these gaps may be bridged by technological advancements, increasing the similarities between conventional and cultured meats

A standards-based approach for cultured meat authentication would create a safer future for all stakeholders and help prevent food fraud. This could also lead to the increased acceptability of cultured meat and meat products by validating claims and labels.

Photo by Ivy Farm on Unsplash

This review article covers the use of low-cost point-of-use molecular biology methods for meat speciation testing;  methods such as loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) or gold nanoparticles linked with oligonucleotides. Such methods are currently more widely used in clinical applications than in authenticity testing but there have been recent publications showing use for meat speciation. The authors conclude that the introduction of these new DNA technologies has facilitated the ease and accuracy of fraud detection. These closed-tube methods (“molecular probes”) are robust and highly sensitive for the specific amplification of target DNA and are also rapid, low-cost and available on site.

This review provides an overview of the molecular methods developed that can be applied for investigating ground meat adulteration and focuses on the advantages of the rapid closed tube methods that can yield colour results interpreted with the naked eye. The application of such time- and cost-effective molecular tools in the food market is proposed to provide a first-level filter for meat adulterated products, serving as a complementary tool to the more in-depth -omics approach.

This paper explores the potential of blockchain technology in promoting sustainable food production and consumption (SFPC) from a consumer perspective in India.  Consumer confidence has been shaken by food safety concerns alongside unexpected events like COVID-19 and geopolitical conflicts. In recent times, consumer focus has shifted a lot towards food safety and security. The study adopted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify the factors strengthening consumer trust through blockchain technology. The EFA helped classify the items into five factors, i.e., reliability, sustainability, impact on health, trust, and switching intentions. The results reveal that these factors are the most significant reasons consumers are willing to accept a blockchain-enabled food system over a traditional system. The study findings will benefit organisations willing to introduce blockchain within their operations to improve the consumer base. It will also prove to be helpful for researchers and academicians to understand consumer perspectives towards blockchain for SFPC.

This feasibility study (purchase required) showed that lipid profiling can discriminate lamb breed and also (unlike stable isotope or elemental profile) the cut of meat.  The authors used Ninxia Tan sheep, a premium breed in China, as proof of concept.  They measured a large panel of lipids in reference populations of authentic and inauthentic breeds and cuts.  They then assessed different Machine Learning protocols for feature selection. 

1230 molecules across 29 lipid classes were identified in longissimus dorsi and knuckle meat of both Tan sheep and Bahan crossbreed sheep. Applying multivariate statistical methods, 12 lipid molecules were identified as potential markers for breed and and 7 as potential markers for the cut of meat. Stepwise linear discriminant analysis was applied to select 3 and 4 lipid molecules, respectively, for discriminating lamb breed and cut, achieving correct rates of discrimination of 100 % and 95 %.

They conclude that back-propagation neural network was superior to other machine learning approaches for this application. Integrating lipidomics with back-propagation neural network approach can provide an effective strategy to trace and certify lamb products, ensuring their quality and protecting consumer rights.

Photo by Pinaak Kumar on Unsplash

In this article the authors analysed the last decade of RASFF alerts relating to adulterated and unauthorised supplements and discussed the potential health impacts.  They conclude that health concerns rise in parallel with the rise in the popularity and market availability of these products.  

The most frequent pharmaceuticals for the adulteration of food supplements were phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (235 records); anorexics and laxatives (76), including sibutramine and its active metabolite N-didesmethyl sibutramine, phenolphthalein and 2,4-dinitrophenol.  There were also stimulants, among which 1,3-dimethylamine (97), and synephrine (53) were the most numerous.  Also included were nootropic drugs (24); anabolics and prohormones (16); and cannabinoid cannabidiol (14) (pending authorization as a novel food ingredient).

Over 65% of these notifications were classified as serious risks, and over 80% of these were alert or border rejection notifications, mainly generated as a result of official control on the market.

The authors recommend that a harmonized nutrivigilance system should be considered as a tool to detect and scrutinize the adverse health effects of food supplements, along with measures to improve their safety, quality, and testing.

Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash

In this study (open access) the authors developed a chemometric model to discriminate adulterated maple syrup.  Spectral measurement was by Attenuated Total Reflectance FTIR with data then processed using Principle Component Analysis.  The authors built their reference library from 69 authentic samples obtained directly from producers and further verified by an expert sensory panel.  They prepared in-house adulterated samples by mixing in sugars from three of 15 cheaper sources at proportions from 5% to 25% giving a total library of 667 adulterated and non-adulterated reference samples. Spectra from these samples were used to build six libraries and three models. They developed a method to perform a qualitative library search using a similarity search, based on the first derivative correlation search algorithm.

 Of the four Canadian classes of Grade A maple syrup, the model could discriminate with high confidence adulteration in “golden” and “amber” syrups but was less specific for  “dark” or “very dark” classes.

 Photo by Nadine Primeau on Unsplash

This Commission overview report describes how Competent Authorities in Member States deliver their obligations to combat food fraud under Article 9(2) of the Official Control Regulations (2017/625).

It outlines how Member States fight fraud along the agri-food chain. Fraud in the agri-food chain affects industry and consumers economically, undermines consumer trust and may lead to serious health issues. The EU has recognised the importance of tackling fraudulent and deceptive practices in the agri-food chain and since 2019 Member States are required to carry out risk-based controls to detect fraudulent and deceptive practices. The Commission carried out a project between 2020 and 2022 to collect information on the new arrangements put in place by Member States to fight fraud in the agri-food chain. Based on this project, the Commission has published an overview report which focuses on eight Member States and how their competent authorities developed control arrangements and strategies to combat fraudulent practices. It presents the challenges, opportunities, and several good practice examples in relation to fraud related controls in the Member States.

This report follows a Technical Guidance Document published in March 2023, to support Member States in their efforts to combat fraud within the agri-food supply chain. This guidance document clearly outlines how to uniformly interpret and apply the respective EU laws in the context of fighting food fraud. It was highlighted in a previous FAN blog in April and has been published on the following website: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC131525

In this study (purchase required) bulk isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) combined with multivariate analysis was used to develop a model to identify the geographical origin of rice and authenticate different rice cultivars from Pakistan. The authors reported significant statistical differences for δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, δ²H and δ¹⁸O isotopes amongst different basmati and non-basmati rice cultivars. δ²H and δ¹⁸O values showed a larger variation between basmati and non-basmati rice cultivars. Multivariate ANOVA showed a significant influence on rice from different regions, cultivars and their stable isotopic values.

The researchers constructed supervised classification models (LDA and PLS-DA) to assess origin. They found that the PLS-DA model achieved a the best classification accuracy at around 70 – 80%.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

A recent thesis from the Universita di Padova involved an analysis of patterns and trends from all food fraud and adulterations reported in the RASFF database from 2005 to 2021 (n=2031). The study identified health certificates as the common manipulated aspect in food fraud, representing 40.92% of reported cases. In addition, mislabelling, adulteration, and tampering were common with meat and meat products, whereas document forgery was more frequent with nuts and seeds. Grey market activities were prevalent among dietetic foods, while counterfeiting was primarily observed in soups and sauces.  The United Kingdom emerged as a focal point with 31.8% of all food fraud notifications, followed by Italy (9.0%). China and India were identified as the predominant origins of food fraud, constituting 16.94% and 11.96% of the reported cases, respectively. The study found that nuts, nut products, and seeds accounted for the highest proportion of fraud/adulteration cases at 22.01%. Followed by fruits and vegetables (10.49%), and meat and meat products other than poultry (10.44%).

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have published their annual technical report on emerging risks.  This report relates to EFSA’s assessment of risks reported during the 2021 calendar year.  EFSA classify 8 risks as “emerging”, most of which are bacteria, virus’s or natural toxins spreading beyond their traditional hosts. None are explicitly food authenticity related but the risk of overdose from too high Vitamin D in food supplements is highlighted, as is unforseen adverse health affects from the consumer trend towards coconut oil.

We have now added signposts to the free IAEA training and Excel add-in for chemometrics to our permanent resources lists.  You can find details on our e-seminars page.  To aid navigation, it is also listed within mitigation tools.  The add-in is invaluable to any laboratory building an authenticity classification model based upon multivariate analysis of known reference samples.

Researchers at Sydney universities are working on the application of handheld XRF scanners (traditionally used for rock or mineral analysis) to the classification of seafood origin by multi-element analysis with chemometric profiling.  The goal is a point-of-use technique that can be applied to fresh seafood and give a result within a few minutes.  Origin verification has a high public profile because the Australian government have signalled their intent to introduce mandatory country of origin labelling on fish and seafood.  The researchers published a proof of concept study in July using tiger prawns.  It is now reported that they are working with Sydney Fish Market to build a database of authentic samples to underpin a wider roll-out of the test.

The latest issue of Tenet Law’s “The Secret Ingredient” fraud mitigation newsletter includes a case study of APP fraud within the food industry supply chain.   Although a risk usually associated with consumer-to-business transactions such as property sales, Tenet warn that fraudsters are attracted to payments that are high in value, and to circumstances which easily lend themselves to email chains discussing payment, where a fake email changing account details would not necessarily look out of place. The food industry with its international supply chains and high value transactions is an enticing target. 

The red flags in this business-to-business version of the fraud are exactly the same as consumers are typically warned about in phishing e-mails including unusual e-mail addresses, poor spelling or grammar, unsolicited requests for financial details and incorrectly replicated company logos or footers.

Aquaphotomics is the classification of samples solubilised in water by the effective change of the water’s NIR spectrum.  In this proof of concept study (open access) the authors successfully applied the technique to in-house samples of tomato powder that had been adulterated with bulking agent (cornflour) and/or colouring agents to mask the adulteration (a selected range of red food dyes were tested).  They found that after principle component analysis and linear discriminant analysis (PDA-LDA) the technique could discriminate adulterated from unadulterated samples at ranges from 0.5 – 20% adulteration.  They repeated the study for three different varieties of tomatoes.  Each classification model is specific to an individual tomato variety.  The authors conclude that this could be the basis for a quick and cheap field test for adulterated tomato powder, a concern in countries where fresh tomatoes are unavailable out of season and thus powder is popular as a culinary ingredient.

There are increasing reports of organised theft of extra virgin olive oil from production mills in Andalucia. This latest media report references other cases in the past few weeks. The traceability documentation is falsified prior to intended re-sale.  Bulk commodity prices of Spanish extra virgin olive oil have doubled in the past year following poor harvests, as has Italian.  Greek prices have also increased but not to the same extent.

This comprehensive review (open access) lists applications, advantages and limitations of recent analytical strategies to authenticate whiskey (the authors use the Irish spelling but it also covers Scotch whisky).  It includes a wide range of spectroscopic, chromatographic, and novel techniques such as e-sensors that have all been used within the past 5 years.  The authors discuss future trends and perspectives.  They conclude that combining analytical and chemometric methodologies will remain fundamental in whiskey classification.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash