On 23 October, I posted the study carried out by IGFS at Queens University Belfast (QUB) on behalf of the Food Industry Intelligence Network (FIIN), which showed that 25% of the sage herb samples tested were adulterated, and the level of bulking ranged from 29 -58%. Now the Vice President of McCormick has responded to the results of this small survey.
Read the article here
In 2015, IGFS (Institute for Global Food Securty) at Queens University Belfast in cooperation with the Consumer Organisation Which? conducted a survey of oregano, which found 25% of the samples tested were adulterated. This year, a small follow-up survey was carried out on 20 samples of oregano, and only one sample was found to be adulterated, which clearly shows a huge improvement from the earlier 2015 survey.
In parallel with the survey on oregano, in August and September this year, a snapshot survey of the herb sage was undertaken, and 19 samples bought from major online retailers; all the well-known UK supermarkets; and smaller, independent shops such as ethnic grocery stores. In this survey, just over 25 percent of all the samples tested were adulterated. The level of bulking out of the sage samples with non-food materials such as olive leaves and other tree leaves, ranged from 29% to a staggering 58%. However, none of the brands sold by the big UK supermarket chains was found to be fraudulent, and only some sage sold by online retailers and smaller independents was found to have been adulterated.
Read the article or IGFS's News Release
The Sage Project is an initiative by designer and developer Sam Slover. The idea is to create food ingredient labels in the cloud, which can be accessed on the web or via a mobile app (the web version is now live and the mobile apps are coming soon, according to Slover). (You can listen to an interview with Slover here.)
Sage gets food information mainly from the manufacturers. Interestingly, Slover said companies were initially reluctant to provide the information but recently have been clamoring to do so. Separately, the food industry is reportedly discovering that unless food companies provide ingredient information, the public will seek it out from more reliable sources offering more transparency.
Sage lists food types (for example, "mandarin oranges") and food products (such as Theo Chocolate's Organic Fair Trade Orange (70%) Dark Chocolate Bar) in its nearly 20,000-item food database.
