A freedom of information request by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) to the FSA's National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) revealed that in 2018 there were 1,193 food crimes recorded. Examples of food crime include the use of stolen food in the supply chain, unlawful slaughter, diversion of unsafe food, adulteration, substitution or misrepresentation, and document fraud. The most common food crime recorded by the NFCU is the ‘knowing sale of food substances not suitable for human consumption’, which could have consequences for public health. In 2018, there were 310 reported cases in this category, as compared to 73 in the previous year.

  Read the article here

Chinese researchers have developed a rapid and simplified work flow analysis using ambient ionisation coupled to a miniature mass spectrometer. The sample treatment and chromatographic separation normally required for mass spectrometry analysis has been by-passed using capillary nano-electrospray ionisation, paper spray ionisation, or syringe spray ionisation depending on the sample.  These are connected to a miniature ion trap mass spectrometer with a continuous atmospheric pressure interface and tandem mass spectrometry capability to undertake the analysis. The system was tested with various food adulterants, and was able to determine as little as 20 - 50 μg/kg of illegal dyes in chilli powder and hotpot seasoning. This developed system has promising potential for fast and in situ screening of food adulteration.

  Read the abstract here

Seafood is particularly prone to fraud. In order to try and ensure the supply chain remains integral, IBM and the US company Raw Seafoods have teamed up to introduce blockchain technology, initially to focus on US Atlantic scallop fisheries. Also Raw Seafoods is one of the first companies to introduce the IBM Food Trust Consumer app for smart phones, where consumers will be able to access full information on the scallops they are eating in certain restaurants or buying in retail using a QR code.  

      Read the article here

This paper gives an overview of the last 5 years literature in the application of analytical techniques such as liquid and gas chromatography, isotope ratio and elemental analysis, spectroscopic, DNA based and sensor technologies for the authentication of foods of plant origin, with a special focus on geographical origin traceability and authenticity. The review covers fruits, cereals, pulses, tea, coffee, spices, edible oil, fruit juices, and alcoholic beverages. The effectiveness of these techniques at laboratory and industrial level, and also their advantages and drawbacks are discussed.

  Read the full paper here

This paper describes a method based on combining a streamlined DNA extraction method and a SYBR Green quantitative polymerase chain reaction (SyG-qPCR) assay to generate a ready-to-use kit for rapid detection of pork admixtures in processed meat products. The method utilises a rapid and efficient DNA extraction from samples and PCR analysis, which were completed in 10 minutes. The qPCR assay utilised repetitive LINE-1 elements specific to the genome of Sus scrofa domesticus (pig) as a target and incorporated internal controls. The method was validated using 121 processed meat products,  and  amplification was consistently detected only in samples containing pork. 

                                     Read the abstract here

This review by Polish researchers reviews the use of spectroscopic methods in testing the authenticity of some selected herbs and spices. The review covers the spectroscopic techniques - IR, NMR, UV in combination with advanced statistical methods (PCA, CA) to confirm either the origin of the product or  distinguishes the herbs or spices from any adulterating ingredients. 

 Read the abstract here

William D. Haning, manager of Wilbur-Ellis Co, Texas whose company was found to be selling adulterated ingredients for petfood was sentenced at a court hearing in October. Haning admitted that he and others shipped adulterated pet food ingredients and products to pet food manufacturers in Indiana and Connecticut, as well as six co-packers and co-manufacturers in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, over a period of more than six years.The company had already been prosecuted (see News blog 22 Nov 2018) along with another company Diversified Ingredients Inc for this fraud, and ordered to pay back defrauded customers US $4.5 million. As Haning had pleaded guilty, and has already paid this money, the court decided to give him a 5 year probation sentence subject to review.  

 Read the article here

In a follow up of a 2018 report, Oceana Canada have released a recent report on the results of a survey of 90 samples taken from 50 different locations in Montreal in 2019. The samples were sent to a commercial laboratory for testing using DNA barcoding for species identification, which found that 31 samples were a different species than was claimed, 21 were mislabelled and three contained species not authorised for sale in Canada.  The 2018 report found a mislabelling rate of 44% in samples from from 5 cities, excluding Montreal. The Montreal results, when combined with previous investigations since 2017, found 47% of the 472 fish samples to date were mislabelled in Montreal, Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax.

 Read the article here and also Oceana Canada's report

Urea is added as an adulterant to give milk whiteness and increase its consistency by improving the non-fat solids content, but excessive amounts of urea in milk causes overload and kidney damage. A sensitive method for detecting and quantifying urea adulteration of milk has been developed using FT-NIRS (Fourier Transformed Near Infra Red Spectroscopy) coupled with multivariate analysis. The model was developed using 162 fresh milk samples, consisting of 20 non-adulterated samples (without urea), and 142 samples with the urea adulterant at 8 different concentrations (0.10%, 0.30%, 0.50%, 0.70%, 0.90%, 1.10%, 1.30%, and 1.70%), each prepared in triplicate. The NIR data coupled with the PLS‐DA (Partial Least Squares -Discriminant Analysis) model can be used to discriminate between the unadulterated fresh milk samples and those adulterated with urea.  Furthermore, the NIR data coupled with PLSR (Partial Least Squares Regression) models may be used to quantify the level of the urea in milk samples. 

 Read the full paper

The FDA has has launched an updated version of its Food Defense Plan Builder (FDPB) to help companies meet the requirements of the Intentional Adulteration rule under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The updated FDPB has been aligned with the requirements in the Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule, so that it can be used to easily create food defence and fraud mitigation plans, and support compliance with the rule. The user friendly plan is not a legal requirement, but guides companies through the following sections: 

• Facility Information
• Product/Process Descriptions
• Vulnerability Assessments
• Fraud Mitigation Strategies
• Food Defense Monitoring Procedures
• Food Defence Corrective Actions Procedures
• Food Defence Verification Procedures
• Supporting Documents
• Food Defence Plan Signatures

Read the article here and obtain the FDPB plan here

Crude red palm oil is a traditional cooking oil in many tropical countries especially in West Africa. Ghanaian researchers (in cooperation with Queens University Belfast) have developed a rapid, non-destructive method to detect Sudan dye adulteration of red palm oil using a portable NIR spectrometer with multivariate analysis. The multivariate model was determined using a total of 520 samples of red palm oil comprising; 40 authentic samples together with 480 adulterated samples containing Sudan dyes (I, II, III, IV of 120 samples each). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to extract relevant spectral information, which gave visible cluster trends for authentic samples and adulterated ones.  The optimised results by cross-validation revealed that MSC-PCA + SVM (Support Vector Machine) gave an identification rate above 95% for both calibration and prediction sets, and hence ould be used successfully to differentiate between authentic red palm oils and adulterated ones. 

  Read the abstract here

This research by the University of Michigan addressed some of the global need for clarification and harmonisation of commonly used terminology such as food fraud, food authenticity, food integrity, food protection, economically motivated adulteration, food crime, food security, contaminant, adulterant, and others.One hundred and fifty survey responses were received from various food-related workgroups or committee members, communication with recognised experts, and announcements to the food industry in general. The food quality and manufacturing respondents focused mainly on incoming goods and adulterant-substances (<50%) rather than the other illegal activities such as counterfeiting, theft, grey market/diversion, and smuggling. Of the terms included to represent “intentional deception for economic gain” the respondents generally agreed with food fraud as the preferred term. Overall, the preference was 50% “food fraud,” 15% “economically motivated adulteration” EMA, 9% “food protection,” 7% “food integrity,” 5% “food authenticity,” and 2% “food crime.” It appears that “food protection” and “food integrity” are terms that cover broader concepts such as all types of intentional acts and even possibly food safety or food quality. “Food authenticity” was defined with the phrase “to ensure” so seemed to be identified as an “attribute” that helped define fraudulent acts.

Read the full paper here

Danish researchers have published a review of the wide range of analytical methods, which aim to quantify meat species in meat products and their limits of detection (LOD). The review attempts to address in particular, the problems associated with a correlation from quantitative DNA based results to meat content (w/w). The aim is to make researchers aware of the problems of expressing DNA results as meat content (w/w) in order to find better alternatives. 

 Read the full paper

This review by Polish researchers looks at the most recent advances in proteomic LC-MS (Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) methods to identify meat species in processed meat products. The review looks at both low and high resolution LC-MS applied to the identification and detection of heat‐stable species‐specific peptide markers. In the case of myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic proteins, LC-MS/MS was able to detect 105 heat stable peptides in processed meat, and in thermally processed samples, myosin, myoglobin, hemoglobin, l‐lactase dehydrogenase A and β‐enolase are the main protein sources of heat‐stable markers. 

  Read the abstract here

The need for more rapid on-site testing for authenticity has prompted Chinese researchers to develop a novel biosensor. This multiple-use trident-like lateral flow biosensor based on species-specific TM-LAMP (tag-labeled multiplex loop-mediated isothermal amplification) permitted sensitive and specific horse and donkey identification. Primers were produced for the endogenous chromosomal reference genes for horse and donkey, which were selected bioinformatically, and the lateral flow biosensor was established using an antigen tag-labeled multiplex LAMP. After optimisation, the biosensor could specifically detect as little as 15 copies of the horse and donkey gene fragments, which took only 40 minutes for the whole process without the need for any additional precision instruments. This platform could be easily adapted for other meat species by using the appropriate primers.

 Read the abstract here

Given the problems of the US organic market and USDA's difficulties to police it effectively, two new initiatives are taking place, which should bring substantial changes. Firstly, an independent investigation unit - OrganicEye (part on the not for profit group Beyond Pesticides) has been formed to provide a resource for the organic farming community and their customers, and hold the USDA to account. Secondly, the USDA is about to publish a new organic enforcement rule, which should have an impact on organic regulations both in the US market and abroad and improve enforcement. Hopefully these two initiatives will help to reduce organic fraud in the US market.

 Read the articles on OrganicEye and the USDA enforcement rule

JRC has published its monthly summary which in this edition covers two months in the summer - July and August, Some  of the stories have been covered  in the website's News items, but there are some new ones including olive oil fraud in the Brazilian market and substitution of avocados by a bright green squash in Mexico.

Read the Summary here

The FSA collects annual data from Local Authorities (LAs) in England, Northern Ireland and Wales on food law enforcement in food establishments, and has published the report of data collected between April 2018 to end March 2019. Data are collected using the web-based LA Enforcement Monitoring System (LAEMS), and cover food hygiene (microbiological quality and contamination) and food standards (labelling, composition, chemical contamination and adulturation). For food standards controls, which cover authenticity and food fraud, the percentage of planned interventions decreased to 40.8 percent from 42.3 percent in the previous year. Even more significant, the number of food standards based analyses fell by 25% because of the lower number of food standards samples taken. LAs have commented that this decrease reflects the trend of an intelligence-led approach to food standards enforcement, concentrating on the higher risk premises. This approach is putting pressure on public analyst laboratories (official control laboratories) and the Worcester PA Laboratory will close at the end of 2019. 

Read the article here or the full FSA report

Chinese researchers have developed a multiplex PCR assay using universal primers based on mitochondrial DNA to identify 8 species (dog, chicken, cattle, pig, horse, donkey, fox, and rabbit) simultaneously in meat products. The assay was tested on 103 commercial meat products from the Chinese market, which demonstrated its effectiveness and applicability.

 Read the abstract here

Researchers in China and Canada have developed a  a highly specific and robust method to identify donkey meat that coupled a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with lateral flow immunoassay (LFI). Donkey-specific PCR primers were designed by targeting the mitochondrial D-loop gene, and their specificity was verified in silico and in vitro against 22 species involved in meat authentication. The PCR-LFI assay gave a limit of detection as low as 0.001% w/w (raw) and 0.01% w/w (cooked) donkey meat in beef. The LFI strip-based visualisation of PCR products allowed for a 10-fold higher sensitivity than conventional gel electrophoresis, and significantly reduced the analysis time for the post-PCR analysis. This PCR-LFI is highly suitable for rapid identification of donkey or incorporation into multiplex screening protocol for other meat authentication. 

 Read the full RSC research paper