Criminaliteit in de keten, fraude met voedsel,

het product- en detectieperspectief

Saskia van Ruth (saskia.vanruth@wur.nl)

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Food fraud report Esther de Lange

(Europarlement 2013)

*From Spink et al, 2011, J. Food Science, 75, 57-63

Trust but verify: from transparency to

competitive advantage

Only adulterers know the extent of food adulteration

None of us knows, unless....

Replacement: species, production system; processing

Mixing product-own material of lower quality

Mixing product-foreign material

Removal/substitution/addition consitutuents

Solid

Solid particles

Liquid

Food authenticity issues till recently

Ingredients:

● Fat: Milk fat replaced in butter; high value oils

● Watered wine, juices, and milk

● Honey with sugar

● Coffee

● Tea

● Spices

● Etc.

Food fraud vulnerabilities

Composition: one, some or all constituents (water, protein, fats, carbohydrates, micro-constituents)

Product history

● Geographical origin (linking geology, climate to products composition)

● Farming management system: organic, animal welfare considering, sustainable, halal

● Processing (fresh, frozen, stored)

Food authentication/characterization

Useful: reinforcement of track and trace methods by intrinsic analytical marker verification

These markers may also substantiate the product quality

Multiple markers: looking for patterns

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•Spectroscopy techniques: FTIR, NIR, MIR, UV etc. •GC-MS, LC-MS, IR-MS, ICP-MS, PTR-MS, SELDI-TOFMS, NMR, DART-MS, etc.

General approach

Selection of interesting marker groups

Selection of analytical techniques

Selection/optimation of statistical models

Compositional adulteration: honey

Honey

Floral origin

Sugar addition

Corn syrup addition

Cheaper honey

addition

Functional components

Corn syrup addition: carbon isotope ratio

analysis

-25 100% honey

-17.5 δ13C

-10

100% corn syrup

δ13C in C3 plants are 23.5‰, for C4 plants this is around 10‰ Adulterated honey will end up somewhere in between

Floral origin: Manuka honey

What is Manuka honey?

Made from the nectar of Leptospermum spp or Manuka bush, a shrub native to New Zealand and southern Australia.

It has been reported to have potent biocidal activity.

Activity is rated by the Unique Manuka Factor (UMF).

Price up to 60 euro/jar

Honey study: floral origin differentiation

Samples: ca. 230 samples, ~25% Manuka honey

● Commercial, certified honey

● Honey obtained directly from beekeepers, confirmed by pollen analysis

Analytical approach

● Active components: single marker analysis

● Floral origin: pollen and instrumental analysis

Microscopy: pollen analysis

Pollen for sale

Methylglyoxal: the functional component

MGO

Manuka honey

Natural clustering without further

optimization

non manuka

manuka

Classification statistics

Production history adulteration

Geographical origin of sustainable palm oil

● Fingerprint techniques, Fatty acids

Palm Oil

introduction

• Palm Oil is one of the

worlds oldest and

largest food in the

edible oils market. It

makes up for 60% of

the oil market.

• It is naturally red in

colour and two oils

are obtained from the

fruit. From the

mesocarp is palm oil

and from the kernel,

kernel oil.

Geographical provenancing of palm oil

Palm oil sampling:

44 crude samples from 8 countries

Palm oil analysis:

δ2H, δ18O and δ13C by “classical” EA-IRMS

Geographical provenancing of palm oil

Relation between δ2H and δ18O in palm oil and in global precipitation?

.0 http://update.maritech.is/tracetool/publish.htm

■ Retrieve predicted range of isotope values for a certain production area:

Mineral water

d2H = -65.8 to -28.7 d18O = -9.0 to -4.6 87Sr/86Sr = 0.708 to 0.715

Zooming in to mill Locations

Developments

More diversity in kinds of adulteration

More advanced adulteration, unconventional adulterants

More attention for red/green light anomaly testing in the field

Need for single compound analysis and pattern recognition

Novel technology combining analytical chemistry and statistics to decipher ‘history’ characteristics of products

Limited transfer from knowledge in the academic world to practice

Thank you

for your

attention