Garlic is widely used in cooking all over the world. Researchers at Queens University Belfast have verified whether NIR (near infrared) and FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy with chemometric analysis can detect garlic mixed with possible adulterants. Authentic and adulterated garlic (with talc, maltodextrin, corn starch, cornflour, peanut butter powder, sodium caseinate, potato starch, rice flour, cassava and white maize meal) samples were prepared at 20–90% levels, and NIR and FTIR spectra of the samples obtained. Principal component analysis (PCA) models were created to establish if there was separation of garlic from the adulterants.Orthogonal partial least squares – discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) models were then developed to be able to detect and classify the levels of adulteration correctly using both NIR and FTIR.

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Food Fraud: A Global Threat With Public Health and Economic Consequences serves as a practical resource on the topic of food fraud prevention and compliance with regulatory and industry standards.

It includes a brief overview of the history of food fraud, current challenges, and vulnerabilities faced by the food industry, and requirements for compliance with regulatory and industry standards on mitigating vulnerability to food fraud, with a focus on the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Benchmarking Requirements.

The book also provides individual chapters dedicated to specific commodities or sectors of the food industry known to be affected by fraud, with a focus on specific vulnerabilities to fraud, the main types of fraud committed, analytical methods for detection, and strategies for mitigation.

The book provides an overview of food fraud mitigation strategies applicable to the food industry and guidance on how to start the process of mitigating the vulnerability to food fraud. The intended audience for this book includes food industry members, food safety and quality assurance practitioners, food science researchers and professors, students, and members of regulatory agencies.

Food Authenticity Network Members are eligible for a 30% discount by using the code ATR30 at https://www.elsevier.com/books/food-fraud/hellberg/978-0-12-817242-1

There has been a large increase in the sale of craft beers, which pride themselves as having distinctive flavours and colour by using proprietary recipes of cereals and flavourings. As craft beers sell for a premium price over large scale produced beers, having a method to distinguish the two types is important to prevent fraud. The use of ¹H NMR and chemometrics to identify metabolites in craft beers, which are absent in large scale produced beers has been used by various researchers around the world. In a recent paper, Italian researchers developed a protocol for NMR anlaysis with chemometrics enabling the automatic identification and quantification of metabolites in approximately thirty seconds per spectrum. Craft beers possessed lower concentrations of adenosine/inosine and trehalose and higher levels of trigonelline, asparagine, acetate, lactate, and succinate when compared with large scale produced beers. These results give a starting point for the development of a standardised protocol to distinguish between the two types of beers.

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Labelling rules require that if raw fish has been previously frozen and sold as chilled/fresh, then it must be labelled as previously frozen or defosted. Norwegian researchers have developed a method based on D/H-NMR analysis to look at certain metabolites, which change concentration when Atlantic salmon is frozen and thawed, then stored chilled. Of the metabolites studied, aspartate concentration was considered the best marker for previously frozen salmon, as it formed in the thawed fish only after the second day of storage at 4 °C, reaching a maximum after 3-5 days then declining. 

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) conducted targeted surveillance between 2019 and 2020 as part of ongoing efforts to detect honey adulteration with exogenous sugars in both domestic and imported honey sold in Canada. A total of 275 samples were collected across Canada and analysed using Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). Two types of honey samples were collected. One group of 127 samples, consisted of single-ingredient honey products such as bulk and honey for further processing from importers and a small proportion from domestic establishments. These were collected from suppliers where the chance of non-compliance was higher, based on risk-factors such as a history of non-compliance, gaps in preventive controls, or unusual trading patterns. The other 148 samples of honey were collected by an independent third party at retailers in various cities across Canada as part of CFIA's compliance monitoring of the marketplace, to gauge overall compliance. Of the targeted samples 17(13%) were considered unsatisfactory from the analytical results of which only 1 was Canadian honey. Of the retail samples, only 3 were considered unsatisfactory, and all of these were imported. As a result of CFIA's actions, an estimated 83,461 kg of adulterated honey was prevented from being sold in the Canadian marketplace between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020.

Read the report, which also gives access to the full analytical results

FSSAI found a consistent increase in cases of non-compliance across the country from previous years. The National Accreditation Board for Testing & Calibration Laboratories tested 1,06,459 food samples during 2018-19, and found 30,415 samples non-conforming, of which 3900 samples were declared unsafe, 16,870 were sub-substandard, and the rest were mislabelled. As a result the Authority prosecuted 2813 criminal and 18550 civil cases resulting in 701 criminal convictions and 12734 fines.

Read the article or the full FSSAI Annual 2018-19 report in English (from page182)

The Government of Catalonia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food in Spain conducted more than 900 inspections in 133 companies this past year. However, the companies chosen were regarded as medium or high risk of infractions after an exploratory programme of inspections of 250 companies. The biggest problem was in the labelling of the products, and of the 438 labels checked, 341 were regarded as non-compliant.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food is the lead partner in the €1.3 million QUALIFY project that continues until January 2023 and involves six countries (Bulgarian, Slovenian and Estonian chambers of commerce and industry, the regional government of Thessaly in Greece and Vienna Chamber of Agriculture, and the Béritovet veterinary agency in France). It is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to increase SME competitiveness in EU regions and states.

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Prof. Chris Elliott gives a reasoned response to two reports about widespread honey fraud on the UK and Indian markets. In both cases, the analysis of the honey samples was by NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance), and although the method is soundly based, issues have been raised around the databases used to verify adulteration or authenticity of honey from different countries, and this was discussd in a UK Government sponsored workshop organised by LGC on the technique last year: Honey authenticity: determination of exogenous sugars by NMR Seminar (2019) Report. 

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The use of hand-held infrared spectrometers combined with chemometrics to authenticate different foods has increased in popularity especially for screening samples in-situ. This study is the first interlaboratory trial to compare the performance of low-cost portable NIR devices coupled to chemometrics to detect adulterated food. In the study, there were 27 participants from 22 countries across five continents using 34 unique devices. The food chosen for this study was oregano, which already had a history of vulnerability to adulteration by different leaves of olive, myrtle, sumac, cistus and phlomis. Participants were sent authentic samples of oregano, and of olive and cistus leaves, as well as a calibration set of oregano and adulterated samples and a validation set of authentic and adulterated samples in order to build models for oregano adulteration. Participants correctly predicted >98% genuine oregano after device standardisation, and predicted 100% adulterated samples after standardisation. The devices native setup shows limited ability to perform a true screening of oregano using the setup offered. However modifications to the setup could in the future offer a solution that facilitates fit-for-purpose real time detection of adulterated samples within the supply chain.

Read the abstract here

Genome editing techniques that modify the DNA of plants do not pose more hazards than conventional breeding or techniques that introduce new DNA into a plant, an EFSA assessment concludes.

The scientific opinion focuses on plants produced using different genome editing techniques: site-directed nuclease-1 (SDN-1), site-directed nuclease-2 techniques (SDN-2) and oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis (ODM). These differ from site-directed nucleases-3 (SDN-3), which was assessed by EFSA in 2012, because they modify a specific region of the genome without introducing new DNA.

Experts concluded that the existing guidance for risk assessment of genetically modified plants is applicable for the evaluation of the three new techniques. However, fewer data for the risk assessment might be needed due to the absence of new DNA.

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In September, the EU and China signed a bilateral agreement to protect 100 European Geographical Indications (GIs) in China and 100 Chinese GIs in the European Union against misuse of the product's name and imitation. The EU list of GIs to be protected in China includes iconic GI products such as Cava, Champagne, Feta, Irish whiskey, Scotch Whisky, West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, Münchener Bier, Ouzo, Polska Wódka, Porto, Prosciutto di Parma and Queso Manchego. Among the Chinese GI products, the list includes for example Pixian Dou Ban (Pixian Bean Paste), Anji Bai Cha (Anji White Tea), Panjin Da Mi (Panjin rice) and Anqiu Da Jiang (Anqiu Ginger). The agreement is expected to enter into force at the beginning of 2021, after adoption by the Council of Ministers. The Agreement should boost European agri-food exports to China, already worth €14.5 billion in 2019. It is also a good measure of China’s ambition to protect intellectual property rights more robustly.

Read the article, and the European Commission's Press Release, which also gives the full lists of the 100 European GIs and the 100 Chinese GIs. 

European honey producers have seen the worst harvest in decades, and it is predicted that this year will see a 40% drop in honey production. Although climate change has disrupted the flowering season, adverse weather conditions in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, where the majority of honey is produced, has also taken its toll on honey production. European honey producers only provide 64% of European consumption, the difference being made up by cheaper imports, which will make up the loss of European production. Copa-Cogeca (Union of farmers and their cooperatives in the European Union) has already called on the European Commission to set up an emergency action plan to help the 650,000 beekeepers with 10 million hives in the EU to survive in the future.

Read the article and the Copa-Cogena Press Release

Recently, herbs and spices have been found to be susceptible to adulteration and fraud. In this feasibility study, the composition of capsaicoinoids and carotenoids has been determined and used as markers for the authenticity of paprika. Capsaicinoids and carotenoids were determined in 136 paprika samples, from different origins (La Vera, Murcia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) and types (hot, sweet, and bittersweet) using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry using atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (UHPLC–APCI–HRMS). The composition of capsaicinoids and carotenoids was analysed chemometrically through a classification decision tree built by partial least squares regression−discriminant analysis (PLS−DA) models and reached a prediction classification rate of 80.9%.

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This method has been developed so that it can differentiate between a slaughtering method that conforms with Islamic rights, and therefore can be certified as Halal, and one which does not.. Kosher slaughter and Islamic rights, Zabiha (ZA) slaughtering procedure involves the severing of the poultry's throat with a single stroke of a sharp knife thus cutting a carotid artery, jugular vein, windpipe, and esophagus without injuring the spinal cord. Non-Zabiha (NZ) slaughter may involve completely cutting off the neck of the animal during slaughter, and hence detaching the spinal cord. Liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) based non-targeted metabolomics of chicken meat samples were evaluated to differentiate meat samples based on slaughtering methods. Forty samples were grouped into equal numbers of Zabiha (cutting neck without detaching spinal cord) and Non-Zabiha (completely detaching neck). A volcano plot revealed at least 150 features found significantly different between the two groups having ≥ 2-fold changes in intensities with p-values ≤ 0.05. Among them 5 identified metabolites and 25 unidentified metabolites have clear differences in peak intensities. After chemometric analysis, the 5 metabolites were considered as potentially significant markers to differentiate between the two methods of slaughter.

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In this article, Emily Miles, Head of the Food Standards Agency, and Prof Chris Elliott, Queens University Belfast, discuss the impact of reduced funding to local authorities (LAs) at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) Food Safety Conference. Emily Miles noted the 20% reduction in food professionals (Environmental Health Officers and Trading Standards Officers) for 2020/21 and what it might mean for food safety, and the effect on our future trade after Brexit. Prof Elliott spoke about the seven principles of food integrity: food should be safe; authentic; nutritious; systems used to produce food should be sustainable; ethical; we have to respect and protect the environment and all those people who produce food.The budget cuts for sampling and testing could lead to a two-tier system in the UK, where large food retailers and manufacturers continue their own very effective food integrity assurance, but leave the SMEs in a very vulnerable position.

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Pistachio is one of the most expensive nuts, and is prone to adulteration because of its high commodity value. The most common adulterants are green pea and peanuts with added colours. Turkish researchers have developed a non-targeted method using portable FT-IR (Fourier Transform infared) and UV–Visible spectrometers.  Samples of pistachio granules were adulterated with green pea and peanut at concentrations from 5-40% w/w, and their spectra taken using  a portable FT-IR spectrometer and a conventional UV–Vis spectrometer, which were analysed by Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) to generate classification algorithms to authenticate pistachio. Partial Least Square Regression (PLSR) was used to predict the concentrations of adulterants, and both instruments gave excellent predictions of adulterant levels.

Read the abstract here

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has published its October 2020 Food Fraud Monthly Summary reporting food fraud incidents and investigations from around the world. Thanks to Bruno Sechet of Integralim for designing the infographic above summarising the food fraud mentioned by JRC.

Read the Summary here

Italian researchers have developed a method based on FT-NIR (Fourier transform - near infrared) spectroscopy combined with chemometrics to authenticate pasta made exclusively with durum wheat. In addition, the objective of this study was to verify that the pasta was made with 100% Italian durum wheat. The 361 samples used were pasta marketed in Italy and made with durum wheat cultivated in Italy (n = 176 samples), and on pasta made with mixtures of wheat cultivated in Italy and/or abroad (n = 185 samples). The samples were analysed by FT-NIR spectroscopy coupled with supervised classification models. Good performance results of the validation set (sensitivity of 95%, specificity and accuracy of 94%) were obtained using principal component-linear discriminant analysis (PC-LDA), which clearly demonstrated the high prediction capability of this method. 

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This open access paper provides a comprehensive review of the definition and composition of honey, the different types of adulteration, common sugar adulterants, and detection methods of honey adulteration. It also discusses some of adverse health aspects of honey adulteration. 

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