Scientists use new tool to fight food fraud
The new scientific technique is able to find the precise species of meat in products, such as the amount of pork mince added to beef mince.
The problem has been drawn into high profile by the horsemeat scandal of 2013.
DNA profiling is the current method used, which can detect items such as horsemeat in products labelled as beef mince. But the test can only detect the presence of another meat and is a time-consuming and an expensive practice.
Different grades of mince beef and pork
The Manchester team, led by Professor Roy Goodacre, checked for metabolites, the chemical fingerprints of cellular processes. The group used different grades of beef mince and pork mince and found a way to identify the different types of meats.
They were also able to precisely detect metabolites that correlated to the percentage of fat and compare this with what was declared on the food label.
“This research is promising, as it could lead to easier, quicker, cheaper ways of analysing meat qualities,” said researcher Dr Drupad K Trivedi.
‘Analysing meat qualities’
“We are currently investigating how different diets fed to animals and methods of meat preparation affect the metabolites and primary metabolic pathways – this further research will help us confidently eliminate factors that may affect the metabolic signature of a meat species.”
The team hopes that this research may lead to the creation of a portable dipstick-type device for detecting problems such as pork doping.
Meanwhile, tackling food and drink fraud is the subject of one of three Food Manufacture group Big Video Debates at Foodex. See box below.
Big Video Debate on food crime at Foodex
Head of the Food Standards Agency’s Food Crime Unit Andy Morling will be taking part in the Food Manufacture Group’s Big Video Debate on food and drink fraud at the Foodex trade event on Monday April 18, between 14.00 and 15.00.
Joining Morling in the panel discussion – Food and drink fraud: protecting your supply chains – will be a range of industry experts. Confirmed speakers include: Professor Tony Hines, director of global regulatory services and crisis management, Leatherhead Food Research, and food fraud specialist professor in accounting at Portsmouth University Lisa Jack.
Show-goers will be able to put a question to our expert panel during the debate. Alternatively you can submit a question about food and drink crime in advance by emailing Mike Stones.
Two other Big Video Debates are taking place at the show: one on campylobacter between 11.00 and 12.00 on Monday April 18 and one on skills on Tuesday April 19 between 11.30 to 12.30.
Meanwhile, Foodex 2016 – the premier trade event for the food and drink processing, packaging, ingredients and logistics industries – will take place at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, between April 18–20.
