Addressing Food Authenticity Challenges

When monitoring for multiple chemical food contaminants, it is common to test various matrices that require multiple sample preparation techniques. The costs of purchasing and running the analytical instruments, as well as the specificity of the measurements, are among the issues that must be addressed.

Food safety analysts are also turning to mass spectrometry instruments and software to run multi-residue analytical methods. Stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry (SIRMS) is most often used to assess sample origin. SIRMS looks for changes in the characteristic isotopic profiles of stable isotopes of common elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, or nitrogen. The method provides high quality selectivity and achieves very low detection limits even in complex food samples.

Chromatography is used more often in food science and technology now because of its high separation capacity, and chromatographic techniques exist for rapid, reliable molecule separation with extremely similar chemical characteristics even in complex matrices. Gas chromatography is used most frequently for the quantitative analysis of numerous molecules such as normal constituents of foods, legal or illegal additives, and pollutants.

There is, however, room for development, especially in accelerating data evaluation of large food sample batches screened for hundreds of compounds. The development and evaluation of software tools that enable screening for the presence of unknown contaminants is crucial for easy identification and confirmation. The complexity of food samples complicates this process. A typical food extract can contain thousands of compounds in a broad range of concentrations; software tools must differentiate between “normal” and contaminated samples, even at low concentration.

Serious Ramifications

Adulterated food has serious health ramifications for consumers, and chemical contamination can originate anywhere along the global food chain. Development efforts have sought to detect and quantify contamination in food samples, with special consideration for the most accurate and reliable analytical instrumentation that can rapidly test samples and safeguard the food supply.

Food authenticity testing encompasses multiple approaches and techniques that are constantly evolving to meet emerging challenges. Tremendous progress in establishing and proving food authenticity has been made. Chromatography and spectroscopy in their various formats, stable isotope ratio analysis, and immunochemical methods are widely used in food authentication. Increased reliance on these and other techniques will expand food testing professionals’ ability to address the current and emerging challenges in all aspects of food authentication.

Gerry Broski is food safety marketing director for Thermo Fisher Scientific. For more information go to www.thermo.com.

Reference

1. European Commission. Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. Available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/pri/ en/oj/dat/2000/l_109/l_10920000506en00290042.pdf . Accessed August 16, 2010.