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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.

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Honey adulteration can be very sophisticated and methods to detect it correspondingly sophisticated, expensive, and difficult to access in some countries.  Basic fraud, however, such as the addition of sugar syrups is still a possibility and can be difficult to detect even with isotope ratio techniques depending on the origin of the sugar syrup plant source.  In this study (open access), a relatively cheap honey authentication method based on HPLC-UV fingerprinting was developed.  The authors report a 100% classification rate of honey samples against a great variety of sugar syrups (agave, corn, fiber, maple, rice, sugar cane and glucose) by partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). In addition, the detection and level quantitation of adulteration using syrups as adulterants (down to 15%) was accomplished by partial least squares (PLS) regression with low prediction errors by both internal and external validation (values below 12.8% and 19.7%, respectively).

Phospholipids (PhLs) are essential components of cell membranes, characterized by a hydrophobic tail and a hydrophilic headgroup. . PhLs are found naturally in foods such as egg yolks, milk, or vegetable oils. The composition and concentration of PhLs observed in these foods vary according to the analytical methodology applied, mainly in the extraction and sample treatment process. There is limited research on using PhL profiles for food authentication.  This review (purchase required) focusses on recent analytical strategies used in characterizing PhLs in distinctive foodstuffs (eggs, milk, and vegetable oils). It discusses sample preparation, analytical separation, and detection techniques, particularly liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. The authors conclude that untargeted approaches, such as PhL fingerprinting, have the potential to characterise the authenticity of food products. The review also highlights the potential of multivariate approaches to incorporate information on PhL composition to assess the authenticity of food products, an area that has been largely overlooked in previous studies.

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Campden BRI have produced a free e-book on supply chain resilience; identifying, planning for and overcoming supply chain challenges.  You can download a copy by registering here.

In this paper (open access) the authors used non-targeted nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in combination with principal components analysis followed by linear discriminant analysis (PCA-LDA) to build a classification model that discriminated fresh from frozen-thawed fish (mackerel, trout, cod). The optimum extraction and NMR method was chosen after evaluating 6 methods to investigate both the lipid fraction and the polar fraction of the fish samples. After cross-validation embedded in a Monte Carlo resampling design, six independent classification models were obtained. Evaluation of the multivariate data analysis revealed that the most promising approaches were the ¹H NMR analysis of the lipid fraction (correct prediction of about 90.0%) and the ¹H NMR based screening of minor components of the lipid fraction with a correct prediction of about 91.9%. ¹H NMR analysis of the water extract of the fish samples showed a correct prediction of about 82.6%. The authors conclude that a general differentiation of fresh from frozen-thawed fish via non-targeted NMR is feasible, even though the underlying sample batch contained different fish species. Additional fish samples need to be analyzed with the three most promising NMR approaches to further improve the developed classification models.

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This analysis, based on surveys or structured interviews with over 200 food and agriculture businesses, lists the most popular and effective strategies that businesses adopted to deal with the heightened threat of food fraud during Covid-19.  There was a consensus that a mixed portfolio of mitigation strategies were essential and that previous incidents had helped to improve mitigation strategies.  None of the companies reported falling victim to fraud during Covid and all considered in retrospect that geopolitical tensions were more concerning than the Covid-19 pandemic.  Although businesses did not regret the additional resources they invested in mitigation they did not consider that Covid-19 had been a main trigger for food fraud.

A number of companies had experience of being victims of fraud in the past and some examples are given.  Consensus mitigation strategies are grouped as information is power, supply chain relationship, understanding product characteristics vulnerabilities and testing capability, and people centred approaches.  There are some simple steps recommended for Small and Medium Enterprises.

This analysis was published in June.  Thank you to a respondent of our recent FAN members’ survey for bringing it to our attention.  Members are always welcome to highlight interesting items on the FAN website discussion boards, which we can then pick up in our monthly highlights bulletin.

The Government Chemist and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have published a sampling protocol for the collection of honey reference samples.

This protocol, the first of its kind in the world, defines a practical and pragmatic process for obtaining reference samples at different points in the honey supply chain, and specifies what associated records, documents and other considerations are necessary for a sample to be deemed acceptable for inclusion in a honey authenticity database.

The protocol is also available through the Defra website and has been added to the 'Guides' tab of the 'Tools_Guides_Reports' part of our 'Food Fraud Prevention' section of our website.

The report from the 12^th internationally-co-ordinated police investigation into food crime (Opson) has been published.  This cycle of the operation focussed on Europe and involved only Europol rather than Interpol.  The report highlights a significant increase in findings of fraudulent recycling of spoiled or expired food to reduce production costs (although this was a foreseen risk, and so deliberately targeted when the operation was planned).   The misuse of protected food names was also the focus of the operational activities. In the United Kingdom, authorities performed checks on protected food name products in food service establishments, such as restaurants, and in individual retailers. The checks identified cases of non-compliance with products, such as feta, Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano cheeses, and meats such as Prosciutto di Parma and products of UK origin such as Welsh beef, Cornish pasties and watercress. The checks identified mislabelling, the temporary unavailability of a specified ingredient in restaurants, but also a lack of understanding of the regulations governing the use of protected food names.

This literature study, led by the University of Lincoln, was commissioned by the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit in order to inform the advice and guidance they give to food businesses, particularly SMEs, regarding food fraud mitigation.

The report covers a number of areas of recognised best practice including the concept of cumulative prevention steps (“hurdles”) in building a food defence strategy.  They can be summarised as increasing the effort (for the fraudster), increasing the risks, reducing the rewards, reducing the temptations and removing the excuses, The authors stress that food business operators can minimise fraud risk by focused supplier approval and procurement processes being embedded in their ‘business as usual’ operations. They recognise the risk that supply chain pressures and practices to deliver low-margin and lower cost food products can promote mindsets and an operating environment where deception, misrepresentation, and fraud occur.

The UK Food Standards Agency has published a report that has developed a Cost of Food Crime (CoFC) model, which identifies and measures the economic and social cost of food crime.

Cost of Food Crime to the UK

• The total cost of food crime on the UK is estimated to be between £410 million and £1.96 billion per year.
• This is equivalent to between 0.07% and 0.33% of the UK food industry turnover each year (BEIS, 2021).
• The estimated value of fraudulent food and drink in the UK is between £296 million and £1.48 billion per year (discussed in Section 2.4 CoFC).
• The range in the estimated total cost of food crime represents the sensitivity to the volume of criminal activity, from crimes reported to estimates of total crimes (including unreported activity). Further research is required to develop the quality of data in order to narrow the range with confidence. 

The full report can be accessed here.

Cinnamomum verum (true cinnamon or Ceylon cinnamon) and Cinnamomum cassia (Cinnamomum aromaticum, false cinnamon) are both common food ingredients and can be difficult to differentiate. True cinnamon has a price premium.  This paper (open access) gives a review of review of analytical methods to discriminate the two species.  The authors report that a diverse array of techniques have been documented, encompassing organoleptic, physical, chemical, and instrumental methodologies, such as spectroscopic and chromatographic methods. They conclude that electronic noses (e-noses), which detect and analyse volatile organic compound (VOC) profiles, have significant potential for a rapid, non-destructive, and cost-effective approach.  The authors also conclude that continued research and development efforts in the utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in conjunction with spectroscopic data will lead to improved methods to combat cinnamon adulteration.

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FoodChainID have produced a free white paper “Current Food Supply Chain Threats – Is Your Company’s Brand Reputation At Risk?”  The paper can be downloaded via the NutraIngredients site here.  It cites the uncertainty in some regions about the future regulation of aspartame as an example of how to react to a rapidly developing regulatory situation in order to protect your brand.  It also covers, at a high level,  how to mitigate the risk of economically motivated adulteration.  It particularly highlights the current heightened fraud risks relating to avocado oil and alcohol adulteration.

This article reports the results of a survey of 50 Bangladeshi retail honeys, including both a premium multifloral (Sundarban) and premium monofloral varieties.  Analysis was by isotope ration mass spectrometry (carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in the protein fraction, plus carbon in the whole honey).  9 of the honeys were found to be adulterated with C4-sugar syrups when assessed using internationally-accepted criteria.  The remaining 41 honeys were used to build an isotope-ratio classification model that can discriminate Bangladeshi honeys from other geographic origins and so can be used as a future classification tool.  The work was funded by IAEA and we are grateful to co-author and FAN member Simon Kelly for providing this author’s hyperlink which gives free access until November 24.

This article in Food Manufacture gives an overview of how to assess the risk of bribery within your supply chain and how to mitigate those risks. The article is written by Tenet Law from a UK perspective but the principles are universal. It will be of interest, particularly, to directors of any company trading in the US who are often acutely aware of their personal liability under US law. The article describes how to mitigate risk by onboarding suppliers, by ongoing due diligence and by regular contract monitoring.

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An article by legal firm Potter Clarkson gives insight from a Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (DVFA) follow-up to Europol’s Operation Opson.  The DVFA concluded that many food manufacturers were too liberal in the way they used protected food origins or descriptors – such as parmesan cheese or La Mancha wine – on their products.  Legally-protected terms cannot be used without evidence from ingredient suppliers to back them up.  Although the DVFA concluded that these were mainly “unconscious violations” they still broke EU (and UK)  law.  Potter Clarkson conclude that Danish violations are minor in comparison to other countries and that lack of legal compliance is an international problem.  The article gives a good summary of EU law in this area.

Thanks again to FAN member Bruno Sechet of Integralim (www.integralim.net)  who has formatted the JRC August food fraud report as this pictorial infographic. 

The original report, along with those from previous months, can be found here. 

Remember that you can sign up on the JRC website to be notified when each report is published. 

One drawback of species testing by DNA is that it does not differentiate between poultry meat and egg nor between beef and milk.  This can be problematic when authenticating vegetarian food.  In this study (purchase required), nine marker peptides for the detection of meat (peptides common across several species) were identified using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). These marker peptides enabled  differentiation between meat and other animal products such as milk. The authors verified the technique using 19 commercial vegetarian meat substitutes containing milk and egg. They then tested over a wider sample set and proved the presence of the cross-species meat marker peptides in 19 food-relevant types of mammals and poultry as well as their absence in more than 136 plant-based ingredients for the production of vegan and vegetarian foods. They produced an in-house vegan sausage matrix based on a commercial retail product and spiked with 5.0%, w/w meat to confirm the high signal intensities and the heat stability of the marker peptides.

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The IAEA have developed training and a free Excel add-in for performing the types of multivariate analysis commonly used in food authenticity analysis.  The add-in and associated e-learning training are available here.  It is part of their "Nucleus" library of resources.  If you do not have an IAEA Nucleus account then you will first have to register here to access the course.

Comparing the stable carbon isotope ratio of sugars and proteins is one way of checking for the adulteration of honey with C4 sugar syrups (e.g. corn syrup).  Detecting C3 sugar syrups (e.g. from rice) is a lot more challenging and requires specialist and relatively expensive analytical equipment (e.g. 1H-NMR and/or LC-IRMS).  A new method (purchase required) uses periodate oxidation of the sugars to produce formaldehyde, followed by reaction with ammonia to form hexamethylenetetramine (HMT).  The hydrogen isotope ratio in HMT is measured by EA-IRMS, which is a much more “entry-level” isotopic analytical technique.  The method was developed by the IAEA, mindful of the needs of low and middle income countries.  The IAEA is developing a database, with its member States, to further correct for the natural variation in hydrogen isotope ratios, that has a geographical component also observed in techniques like SNIF-NMR.

One potential fraud is the undeclared bulking of meat products such as burgers and sausages with cheaper plant-based ingredients.  The authors of this paper (purchase required) describe a rapid (20 hours), robust and sensitive method for the detection of 23 foreign protein sources (alfalfa, buckwheat, broad bean, chia, chickpea, coconut, egg, flaxseed, hemp, lentil, lupine blue, maize, milk, pea, peanut, potato, pumpkin, rapeseed, rice, sesame, sunflower, soy, and wheat) in meat products using high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). It includes a new rapid defatting procedure, without carry-over effect and suitable for routine analysis, a robust protein extraction protocol (TRIS/HCl (1 M, pH 8.2) with 40% acetonitrile), suitable for various animal- and plant-based proteins including grain proteins, and new peptide markers for buckwheat and potato. An investigation of the influence of cooking (emulsion-type sausages), grilling (hamburger patties) and maturation (salamis) showed that the detection method is robust against different types of processing. The authors report that the limits of detection for all foreign protein sources were ≤ 0.02% protein and that no false-positive or -negative results were obtained.

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