News

UK Hospitality has published a Catering Industry Guide to Good Hygiene Practice that mentions food fraud and food crime for the first time.

The industry guide to good hygiene practice provides information on legal obligations for caterers and the practical requirements to comply with food hygiene law. The guide also offers advice to operators on good practice, which although is not a legal requirement, is likely to contribute to the overall achievement of food safety and customer satisfaction.

The guide has been developed by the food industry and is recognised by the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland, in accordance with Article 8 of Retained Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004.

What changes have been made to the guide?

The updated version of the guide includes four new sections:

1. Food crime
2. Surplus food donating leftover food to charity
3. Freezing and defrosting of food
4. Chilled vacuum-packed meats – shelf life

Cost and format

An E-copy is free to download, you can access it here

A printed copy is available at a cost of £25 + postage for UKH members, and £35 + postage for non-members. To order your printed copy, please complete your details here

Isotope ratio data are increasingly used in a variety of fields including, ecology, marine sciences, earth and geosciences, forensic science, hydrology, medicine, food (including food authenticity and origin), and climate science.
 
Over the years, there have also been changes to guidelines for measurement methods, calibration conventions and even to international measurement standards that form the base of the traceability chain for isotope delta values for H, C, N, O and S.
 
It is impossible to combine isotope ratio data from a variety of sources unless the data are accompanied by a clear description of traceability and other method details.

The UK National Measurement Laboratory at LGC was part of an international group that compiled the IUPAC Technical Report presenting minimum requirements for reporting isotope ratio data, covering analytical procedure, traceability, data processing and uncertainty evaluation.

This report will help in the standardisation of methods that involve the measurement of stable isotopes.

Read the IUPAC Technical Report on minimum requirements for publishing hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur stable-isotope delta results.

This new book is timely given the recent increase in sales of vegan food in particular. It aims to deal with the issues and science related to the authenticity of the most important plant foods such as cereals, nuts, legumes, table olives and olive oil, coffee, tea, fruits and vegetables, fruit juices, spices, mushrooms, beers and wines, and honey, using state-of-the-art analytical techniques and instrumentation coupled with available chemometric tools.

More information on the contents here

Traditional cheeses, with protected names (PDO/PGI) are sold at a premium and hence can be susceptible to substitution and fraud. This review reports the available authentication methods, either chemical, physical, or DNA-based methods, currently used for origin authentication, highlighting their principle, reported application to cheese geographical origin authentication, performance, and respective advantages and limits. Isotope and elemental fingerprinting showed consistent accuracy in origin authentication. Other chemical and physical methods, such as near-infrared spectroscopy and NMR, require more studies and larger sampling to assess their discriminative power. Emerging DNA-based methods, such as metabarcoding, showed good potential for origin authentication. However, metagenomics, providing a more in-depth view of the cheese microbiota (up to the strain level) is an interesting approach to authenticate the origin of cheeses, but is still in its early development.

Read the full open access paper.

Oregano has been identified as one of the herbs most susceptible to adulteration. Methods based on DNA, spectroscopic analysis and even microscopy have already been used. In this paper, a new approach for authentication of oregano, which combines metabarcoding by NGS (next generation sequencing) and metabolomics/chemometrics by NMR, has been developed. The industry standard for oregano permits only 2% extraneous matter. A previous survey on oregano has shown that the most common plant adulterants are olive, sweet marjoram and myrtle leaves, and non-leaf plant material. In this study, 92 oregano, 38 sweet marjoram, and 2 olive leaf samples from 6 different countries in total were used. Metabarcoding by NGS was used to identify the nature of oregano products and possible adulterations. Metabolomic profiles obtained by NMR correlated well with oregano species and their regional origin. Using chemometric analysis, it was possible to quantify of the percentage of an adulterant with error rates of 3–7%.

Read the open access paper here

Given that laboratory based analytical methods are time-consuming and require trained operators, there is an increasing need and developement of portable on-site or point of need (PON) testing. These are rapid, low cost and give results in real-time for both qualitative and quantitative screening for food quality, authenticity and safety. This process automatisation through process analytical technologies (PAT) is an increasing trend in the food industry as a way to achieve improved product quality, safety, and consistency, reduced production cycle times, minimal product waste or reworks, and the possibility for real-time product release. These techniques could also be used by consumers for end point testing, or farmers and small producers to monitor products in the field. This development requires the attention of the research community and device manufacturers to ensure reliability of measurement results from PAT strategy and PON tests through the demonstration and critical evaluation of performance characteristics. The authors warn that the fitness for purpose of methods in real-life conditions is a priority that should not be overlooked in order to maintain an effective and harmonised food safety policy and food fraud prevention.

Read the full open access paper.

In this paper, which also utilised CRISPR, the researchers combined loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) with a sensitive CRISPR-Cas12a silver nanocluster fluorescence sensing system, for testing for adulteration in meat samples. The specific sequence recognition of CRISPR-Cas12a allowed accurate identification of the target DNA. 

Read the abstract here

CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas(CRISPR-associated protein) is derived from a microbial antiviral system and is commonly associated with cutting edge gene editing. However, the system can also be adapted for diagnostic applications inclusive of novel approaches for food authenticity and adulteration testing.

In this paper, the Chinese research team coupled PCR amplification with a CRISPR-Cas12a based colorimetric system to indicate the presence of DNA barcoding targets by a visible colour change. The whole detection process including PCR amplification and TMB ( 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine sulfate) colorimetric analysis can be completed within 90 minutes.This sensitive assay was verified by the identification of four important species of pufferfish,

Read the abstract here

“Which foods are most adulterated”? is a question that the Food Authenticity Network is frequently asked, so the Network is delighted to be collaborating with FoodChain ID to provide this information. Foods most reported as being fraudulent is based on data from the FoodChain ID Food Fraud Database, and it will be reviewed and posted on an annual basis in the Food Fraud Prevention section of the Food Authenticity Network website.

The data on the website is for the last 10 years up to 2021. The category "Other" covers mainly ingredients that do not fit into any of the other categories list, e.g. tree nuts/peanuts, sweeteners/non-nutritive sweeteners (other than honey), and various food additives.It also includes some composite food such as ready meals. The data has already been published in an article written by Dr Karen Everstine of FoodChain ID in the Network's June 2022 Newsletter.

The SFCIU lists the red meat sector as high risk for food crime based on its past and present targeting by criminals across the supply chain. The potential risks to the industry are:

• Fraudulent use of ID tags, cattle passports, accreditation etc.;
• Mislabelling of durability date;
• Other origin red meat sold as Scottish;
• Lower quality of product misrepresented as premium;
• Stolen livestock;
• Illegal slaughter;
• Animal by-products;
• Food crime occurring in other meat products such as ready meals.

Read the article here

This publication examines the joint threats arising from criminal activity in the Nordic food production chain. The countries participating in the project are Norway (leader), Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. It summarises and draws from the discussions which took place at a methodology seminar for participants in December 2018, the purpose of which was to discuss what a threat assessment is, and what is known about fraud and deception in the Nordic market. International experts from the UK and the USA, as well as experts from the Nordic customs authorities and the police, also participated in this seminar. In 2019, Denmark, Norway and Sweden carried out national threat assessments as a contribution to this Nordic report. Finally, a seminar for Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority inspectors and local inspectors was arranged in Iceland and was also attended by US participants.

Read the full report here

This review is a chapter in a book entitled "Blockchain in Finance, Marketing and Others". It explains the workings of blockchain, and its applicability in monitoring and verifying the data and information in the food chain from farm to fork. It covers how blockchain can address the challenges faced in ensuring food supplies deal with food safety, food fraud and food waste issues, as well as its benefits.

Read the full chapter here

Food fraud is a constant threat to the spice industry. The results of the food fraud databases and the literature indicate that ginger fraud is a threat that has not been well investigated by researchers, especially the adulteration issues of ground ginger.The ginger supply chain between China and the EU is long and complex, providing opportunities for fraudsters to deceive consumers. This review aims to summarise the open access information from food and food fraud databases, literature, and stakeholders about ginger fraud, and to map, deconstruct and analyse the food fraud vulnerability in the supply chain. Examination of databases and interviews with stakeholders revealed that the most vulnerable ginger products to adulteration are ground ginger and finely processed ginger. Recommendations in the review to ensure the integrity of the ginger supply chain, point to a need to apply fraud vulnerability tools in the companies of the industry. In addition, screening and confirmatory techniques based on the characteristics of ginger should be utilised for monitoring fraud issues in the supply chain.

Read the full open-access paper.

Given the price differential between NFC (not from concentrate) and FC (from concentrate) orange juice, the vulnerability of substitution of NFC by FC orange juice makes it important to have methodology to distinguish between the two type of processed juice. In this study, the differential compounds between NFC and FC orange juice prepared from 5 different orange cultivars and 4 sterilisation methods were identified using untargeted screening by UPLC-QTOF-MS (Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography - Quadrapole Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry) and machine learning. Combining principal component analysis and orthogonal projection to latent structures discriminant analysis, 11 differential compounds for NFC and FC orange juices discrimination were identified, and used to discriminate between NFC and FC juices using targeted LC-MS methodology.

Read the article preview here

This article written by Prof Chris Elliott delves into a potential scandal unfolding in China surrounding soy sauce manufactured by Foshan Haitian Flavouring & Food, and highlights a warning food and beverage manufacturers should heed. The true soya sauce is produced by a lengthy fermentation process of soya beans. However, an inferior soya sauce can be produced from a mix of ingredients that include salt, caramel colouring and flavour enhancers such as monosodium glutamate.

Read the full article here

This review covers the myriad of analytical techniques that can be used for honey authenticity testing. It includes various detection methods like ISCIRA, NMR, AT-FTIR, Sensors, PCR based assay united with an appropriate multivariate approach. The botanical origin authentication of honey can be determined with the application of δ13C-EA-IRMS and δ13C-LC-IRMS coupled SVM, which discriminate samples based on specific markers. LIBS, NMR, HPTLC, UHPLC, GC, and real-time PCR, can generate data that is then processed with LDA, OPLS, PCA, ANN, CNN or other chemometric tequniques. The generated data discriminate adulterated honey from pure, and it is reported that NMR coupled with PCA can detect 1% of adulterants in honey. The review concludes that there is a long way to go in this field to develop a universal technology for honey authentication and adulteration detection.

Read the abstract here

Carotenoids play an important role in the stability, freshness, and nutritional value of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO). However, the carotenoid content in EVOO changes over time as a function of olive ripening and degradation. A reliable quality marker is the ratio between the two most abundant carotenoids, namely lutein and β-carotene, since the second degrades more rapidly. This paper presents a reliable method to assess the lutein/β-carotene ratio in EVOO using a single Raman spectrum.  Resonant Raman spectroscopy is a rapid and non-destructive technique, widely applied for food chemical characterisation.. It is a novel approach for this application and offers the prospect of on-site screening of EVOO quality and authenticity, especially if implemented as a portable system.

Read the abstract here

Assurance that honey has not been adulterated with sugars of C4 origin (e.g. high fructose corn syrup or invert cane sugar) is carried out by the internationally recognised AOAC 998.12 C4 sugar adulteration test. In the past decade, there have been concerns around the applicability of this test to mānuka honey due to honey with a high concentration of methylglyoxal (MGO, >250 mg/kg) often failing the test.  It is this same high MGO content that makes manuka honey such a premium product. This paper reviews the literature to determine possible causes for this failure and identifies more suitable methods of analysis that can be applied to detect syrup addition to manuka honey.

Read the full open access paper here

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has published its October 2022 Food Fraud Monthly Summary reporting food fraud incidents and investigations from around the world. These have been kindly represented as an infographic above by our Member Bruno Séchet, and thanks for allowing us to share it with the rest of the Network.

You can download the October 2022 Food Fraud Summary here

UKAS recently published its Annual Report for 2021/2022, which also contained contributions from external experts providing their own perspectives on a range of important topics. This paper is from Emanuele Riva, Chair of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), who considers the future for international collaboration in the accreditation arena. 

At the international level, accreditation is entering a very significant internal reflection phase.  The scenarios are difficult to predict.  On the face of it, the crisis in Ukraine has the potential to threaten the long-term unity of international organisations.  In reality, the accreditation community is coming even closer together, with IAF and ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) having decided to join together to become one new organisation. The paper speculates about the future developments taking into account the changes occurring in digitisation and the drive for sustainability.

Read the article here