New technologies aid in the detection of Food Fraud: Spices have been an ongoing hot target for fraudulent activity, whether it is the addition of inedible substances like dyes, or bulking agents, such as brick powder, other plant material, sawdust and many other, potentially hazardous substances. A relatively new technology, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), enables to analyze the DNA of complex samples such as spices and herbs. The DNA findings are compared to a database and allow to detect many thousands of species in one test. Currently, working groups are developing standardized methods for such authenticity tests.

Did you know that our Food Fraud Database contains analytical methods for food fraud detection?

Picture Credit Susanne Kuehne

Posted on 9 August 2021