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Jun 12, 2018 | Blogs, Food / Beverage | 0 comments
If you are reading this blog, it is likely that you are fully acquainted with food fraud, but let’s just take a moment to set the scene.
Food fraud is by no means a new phenomenon and goes as far back as the middle ages, with the concept of tampering or misrepresenting food or ingredients for profit becoming rampant in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the safety of our food supply has greatly improved since then, food fraud is still very much with us and continues to be an issue, not only because of the possible harmful side effects for consumers but also due to ethical and religious concerns around food origin.
Food fraud costs the global food industry an estimated $10 – $15 billion per year (US), affecting around 10% of all commercially sold food products (Grocery Manufacturers Association). In most cases, it involves replacing a high-value product or ingredient with a lower quality alternative, and olive oil, honey, milk, saffron, fruit juice, coffee, tea, meat, fish, and grain-based products top the charts.
So, what needs to be done to protect the industry and consumers against these counterfeit or adulterated food products?
Ultimately, government regulators are responsible for ensuring food safety, and many initiatives are in place and in the pipeline to try to tackle this very complex issue. That said, finding and proving food fraud will always be a top priority for regulators, and the need for more reliable and more efficient identification methods is greater than ever.
Introducing High-Resolution LC-MS/MS for Fast and Dependable Food Fraud TestingThere are several analytical methods available to assess the authenticity of ingredients, such as PCR and ELISA, but few match the performance of high-resolution LC-MS/MS in delivering fast, accurate results across a broad variety of food products and adulteration types.
Where other methods are commonly known to deliver false negative or false positive results and suffer from sample degradation that impacts on the reliability of results, LC-MS/MS does not. It is sensitive enough to detect contamination at very low levels and diverse enough to detect multiple species simultaneously. It also utilizes multiple peptide or lipid markers from each species to help improve reliability in the results—first time, every time.
SCIEX LC-MS/MS offers powerful food fraud testing solutions from how you can cut through the complexities of assessing authenticity with rapid and reliable food and beverage profiling:
Let’s fight the good fight together and stop counterfeit produce entering our food supply, visit our food fraud page to find out more.Learn More About Food Authenticity Testing >
Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is emerging as one of the most concerning ultrashort-chain PFAS in Europe’s food supply – particularly in cereals, a staple consumed daily by millions. A report from PAN Europe reveals a widespread and largely unmonitored contamination trend that raises serious questions about food safety, regulatory blind spots, and future monitoring strategies.
PFAS analysis is complex, but expert guidance doesn’t have to be. In this episode of our ‘Ask the PFAS expert series’, we’re joined by Michael Scherer, Application Lead for Food and Environmental, to answer the most pressing questions in PFAS analysis. From why LC-MS/MS systems are the gold standard for analyzing diverse PFAS compounds, to which EU methods deliver reliable results for drinking water, and to practical steps to prevent contamination, Michael shares actionable insights to help laboratories achieve accuracy, consistency, and confidence in their workflows.
During an LC-MS/MS experiment, traditional fragmentation techniques like collision-induced dissociation (CID) have long been the gold standard. Electron-activated dissociation (EAD) is emerging as a transformative tool that enhances structural elucidation, particularly for complex or labile metabolites.
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