Bio-Check (UK) is in the advanced stages of developing a high sensitivity ELISA for the specific detection of pork in raw foods. The one hour ELISA detects down to well below 0.1% pork content and appears to show only limited differences between tissue types (lean muscle; belly cut; low grade mince; bacon; pork fat have been tested). No cross reactivity/interference was observed with over 80 food commodities. The only reactive material was highly processed porcine gelatin, which would seem to infer that the assay might also work as a cooked meat test and this is being investigated. A limited number of evaluation kits is available to interested laboratories.
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