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Supplements, the last frontier?

The supplement industry received a wakeup call last year, particularly in the USA, after the New York attorney general commenced legal proceedings against 13 supplements manufacturers alleging that the supplements did not contain exactly what they should have contained.  The sampling and test methodology used to support the prosecution has been widely criticised, and the industry considers the results to be questionable at best.  Nevertheless, the issue of authenticity and adulteration has received extra attention among producers and users of supplements since then.

Some examples of recent supplement frauds have involved grape seed extract adulterated with peanut skins.  Ironically, grape seed extract has also been found to be an adulterant itself, with some cranberry products adulterated.  Within the supplements investigated by the New York attorney general, valerian was found to contain garlic and wild carrot, echinacea was found to contain rice and buttercup DNA while St Johns wort was alleged to contain DNA from a species of ornamental house plant.

What’s being done?  Well you won’t read about it in the press but there’s no question that large retailers, including those that were targeted by the New York attorney general, such as Walmart, Target, GNC and Walgreens, have reviewed and tightened up their purchasing contracts; supplement testing methodology has been reviewed and reputable supplement manufacturers are testing more of their ingredients more often.  And that’s great news for consumers.

 

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When organic foods are not what they seem

This piece started life as a good news story; results released by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) in January show that more than 99% of tested foods contained either no detectable pesticide residues or residues below the allowable limits. The USDA has been quick to share these results and assure consumers of the safety of the American food supply.  But there are some disturbing results within the raw data, results that are not mentioned in the official report.  In fact, for one industry sector, the results are very bad news indeed.

The tests were conducted by the USDA as part of its pesticide data program (PDP) during the calendar year of 2014 and the results were published in January 2016.  During 2014, testing was conducted on 10,619 samples of food (mainly fresh produce), and each sample was tested for about 200 pesticides.  That’s a lot of data, over two million test results in total, and the USDA does not include all of the results in their public reports, although they do share their raw data with anyone who wants to download it.  One aspect of the testing that is not discussed in the official report is that each of the ten thousand samples was categorized according to its marketing claim.  While the overwhelming majority of samples were categorized as ‘no claim’, there were 416 samples of products claiming to be either pesticide free or organic.

organic produce pesticide authentic fruit vegetable

A closer inspection of the raw data shows that of those 416 samples, 22% of them returned a positive result for at least one pesticide, often more than one.  That is, almost one quarter of all ‘organic or ‘pesticide free’ products contained pesticide residues.  And 10 of the 416 samples actually contained pesticide/s at levels denoted by the USDA as a violation or presumptive violation of allowed limits.  Approximately 2% of products that claimed to be ‘organic’ or ‘pesticide free’ in fact contained unsafe levels of pesticides.

The worst offenders were ‘organic’ frozen cherries.  Every sample of organic frozen cherries contained residues of at least one pesticide.  The results were similar for conventional frozen cherries.  Within both types, there were also a number of samples with violations or presumptive violations (unsafe levels) of pesticide.  Disturbingly, the organic frozen cherries had a much higher proportion of samples with unsafe levels of pesticide than the conventional frozen cherries.

Tomatoes also gave disturbing results; 75% of ‘organic’ and ‘pesticide free’ tomatoes contained at least one pesticide and 25% of them had unsafe levels of carbendazim (MBC) pesticide.  By comparison, only 18% of the tomatoes marketed without claims were found to be in violation of the pesticide limits.

Grape juice was another commodity that fared poorly for organic claims; of the 531 conventional and organic samples that were tested, there was only one that had pesticide levels deemed to be unsafe… it was labelled ‘organic’ and made in the USA.

Pesticide residue in food

What does this mean for organic foods?

Are organic foods free from pesticide residues?  In a word: no.  A significant proportion of organic foods contain pesticide residues and some contain pesticides at levels that have been deemed unsafe.  The pesticides detected on organic foods in the PDP study were almost entirely synthetic chemical pesticides that are not approved for use on organic crops.  The study did not include testing for commonly used organic-approved pesticides.

Do organic foods contain less pesticide and are they safer than conventionally grown foods?  Yes and no… the PDP data presents a complicated picture, with huge differences between commodity types, but on the whole, there were less detections of pesticide residues within the organic and pesticide free samples than the conventional samples.  However, the proportion of samples that were in violation of pesticide limits was comparable.  That is, if you live in the USA, the chance of consuming a product with levels of pesticide deemed unsafe by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is similar, whether you purchase organic food or not.

Organic peas vegetable pesticide

Are some foods better than others?

The 2014 PDP testing regime included 26 food types.  Most were fresh or processed (canned or frozen) fruit and vegetables but testing was also performed on oats, rice, infant formula and salmon.  Carrots and nectarines were two foods for which the organic samples had better results than their conventional counterparts.  Both of these foods types had many samples that contained residues; for example, almost 100% of conventional nectarines and 96% of conventional carrots contained at least one pesticide. There were samples with violations or presumptive violations (unsafe levels) of pesticides for both conventional and organic carrots and nectarines, however the organic produce had lower proportions of samples with detectable levels of residues and lower numbers of samples with unsafe levels.

Organic summer squashes also fared well compared to their conventional counterparts, with less samples containing residue at any level and also less samples with unsafe levels.  Other organic foods, including blueberries, celery, canned green beans and fresh peaches, had lower proportions of samples with detected residues, but unfortunately, for those foods the proportion of samples with unsafe levels was similar for both conventional and organic types.

Both organic and conventional samples had excellent results for dairy-based infant formula and salmon.  Neither of those foods contained residue of any kind in any sample of either conventional or organic types.  Salmon samples included fresh, frozen, wild-caught and farmed salmon of different varieties from ten countries.

apples pesticide

Where can I get more information?

The USDA has published a fact sheet and a document entitled “What consumers should know” in the Agricultural Marketing Service section of the USDA website.

Download a copy of the official report from the USDA website by clicking here

The raw data is available to download here

Sensible information and discussion of organic and conventional farming methods from Scientific American.

If you know someone who would be interested in this information, please share it by clicking one of the buttons below.

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Food authenticity is my passion… death from inauthentic coconut drink

Why am I passionate about authenticity in our food supply? Because when we get things wrong horrible tragedies can happen; in December 2013 an allergic child died from anaphylaxis because of undeclared dairy ingredient/s in his coconut drink.   His parents knew of his dairy allergy and checked the label to make sure that the ‘natural coconut drink’ did not contain cow’s milk before they gave it to him. Unfortunately the label was wrong.

Tragedies like this are preventable.  It has taken almost two years and the near death of another child under similar circumstances for widespread action to be taken by the local food regulatory authorities here in Australia.

The importer of the drink has pleaded guilty to charges of labelling in a way that falsely describes food and will be sentenced later this month.

Coconut beverages are being tested and recalled right now, but I’m sad that it has taken such a long time for this to become a high priority for food law enforcement.

For a full report  on this incident click here.

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How much does a recall cost?

Here in Australia one of the best publicised food scares we have had in recent years was a large-scale recall of frozen berries that were apparently contaminated with Hepatitis A.  The recall was prompted after a string of cases of the virus in New South Wales and Victoria were blamed by health officials on the well known Nanna’s brand of mixed berries.

The recall is reported to have caused direct costs of $4.4 million, including the loss of $3.8 million worth of berries that had to be disposed of, compensation payments to people who contracted Hepatitis A, public relations and social media costs and the cost of advertising the recall to consumers.

Indirect costs were much higher: the owner of Nanna’s brand and manufacturer of the berries, Patties Foods, posted a profit decline of 90%.  The chairman Mark Smith blamed the decline saying “The frozen berries recall had a significant impact and was the primary reason for the approximate $14.6m reduction in net profit,”

Patties later sold their frozen berry business and in the process lost a part of their business that had generated 13% of their sales in previous years.  More on the sale

Not one sample of Nanna’s berries tested positive for the virus.

Larger brands:  more to lose

Mars Galaxy and Teaser brand chocolates were recalled from markets in the United Kingdom and Ireland in June 2017 after the company found evidence that Salmonella could have been present in ingredients used to make the products.  Mars reportedly filed a product recall insurance claim of $50 – $60 million in November 2017.

So to answer the question posed by the title of this blog – how much does a recall cost? – the answer is A LOT.

pics 019

 

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Food fraud only affects expensive food, right?

Wrong!  While it’s pretty obvious that you could make an economic gain by bulking out an expensive food like caviar with something less expensive, it’s also possible to make economic gains by making tiny alterations to big-volume commodities.  Even switching just one or two percent of a bulk item like beef mince or rice with something cheaper can create a huge economic gain when sales are counted in the thousands or tens of thousands of tonnes.

Ground meat is one commodity that has been frequently affected by this kind of food fraud.  The adulterants are typically lower grade meat or offal from the same species or meat from a cheaper species.  This kind of adulteration is difficult, if not impossible for consumers to detect.

Rice is another commodity that, despite being relatively cheap, is also affected by economically motivated adulteration. The adulterants are reported to be plastic pieces, including thermal insulation materials, potato starch mixed with polymer resins and even pieces of paper rolled to look like grains.  This type of fraud relies on transient and poorly documented supply chains; the person who ultimately tries to eat the rice will detect the fraud in most cases – although there are reports of people suffering digestive problems after consumption – however the source of the adulteration usually proves impossible to trace.

If rice adulteration was occurring on a big scale in Europe I suspect that increasing the requirements for paperwork and trying to improve supply chain transparency would be the chosen strategy for those tackling the issue.  In the Philippines they have taken a more direct and – for now at least – more feasible approach.  They have developed a hand-held scanner that uses Raman spectroscopy to detect ‘fake’ rice by distinguishing between starch and styrene acrylonitrile copolymer.  Fast, cheap, easy and no paperwork needed.