Food Fraud Advisors

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Chicken flavoured nail polish and other food trivia

It’s always a joy to stumble across new and silly food facts as I take my daily stroll through the huge inter-web-universe of food industry news.  Here are my favourites from the last few weeks:

In Japan you can purchase sake-flavoured KitKats containing 0.8% alcohol.  Because sake and milk chocolate have always seemed like a great match…?

Pink peppercorns are the berries of a Peruvian tree and not genetically related to other types of peppercorns, despite the fact that green, white and black pepper all comes from the same flowering vine (Piper nigrum).  Green peppercorns are unripe berries, black peppercorns are dried berries and white peppercorns have had their dark outer husks removed prior to drying.

The famous fried chicken chain KFC plans to release flavoured nail polish that you can lick.  It has made two flavours available for market testing in Hong Kong and residents of that city can choose which will go into production; Hot & Spicy or Original.  This is not a prank; they really have developed chicken flavoured, lickable nail polish.  And it comes in two colours.

Watermelons looked really weird in the 17th century.  And probably didn’t taste that great. This painting by Giovanni Stanchi from around 1650 is of a watermelon of the day.  Who says genetic engineering is a modern-day phenomenon; we have been doing it for centuries.

Stanchi via Wikimedia Commons
Stanchi via Wikimedia Commons

Animals known as bearcats or binturong in South East Asia have popcorn flavoured urine.  Researchers confirmed this by squeezing 33 sedated binturongs, which are about the size of raccoons, to obtain samples for chemical testing.  Yes; squeezing.  The researchers published a paper in the prestigious journal Science of Nature which prompted one journalist to be tempted by the unfortunate pun ‘passing the popcorn’.

 

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Verifying traceability; MSC certified seafood passes the test

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has published a report describing the results of a DNA survey on MSC certified fish from 16 countries.

Businesses that handle MSC certified sustainable seafood are required to comply with the MSC Chain of Custody Standard to ensure that they have effective traceability systems in place.  This helps to ensure that the consumer receives fish that are from sustainable fisheries, as promised by the MSC sustainable seafood label.  MSC conducts a survey every two years to verify the effectiveness of the standard and to ensure that distributors, processors and retailers trading in MSC certified sustainable seafood are complying with the standard.

fish species fraud

The results of the latest survey are really positive.  The MSC sampled fish and fish products carrying the blue MSC certified label from 16 countries.  Of the 256 samples tested, only one of those was identified as being mislabelled.  Upon further investigation MSC found that the mislabelled ‘Southern rock sole’ was in fact ‘Northern rock sole’; it was an accidental misidentification of two closely related species, rather than a deliberate fraud.  So it seems that the MSC Chain of Custody Standard is working really well across the world.

Interestingly, the final pages of the report include a discussion about how the results compare with similar surveys conducted by other organisations.  Those other surveys included species testing of many fish types, within many countries, mostly from retail outlets.  The levels of mislabelled fish species were generally low in Europe, with more than 90% being of the samples being accurately labelled.  The only countries that had less than 70% accuracy were Belgium, USA, South Africa and Canada.  Sadly, the Canadian results were the poorest, with less than 60% of samples in that survey being accurately labelled.   The Canadian results were also the oldest, being from 2011, with most of the European results from 2015.  Perhaps seafood labelling in Canada has improved in the last five years, just as it has in Europe.

 

 

 

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Fish pizza, from the things that make me go hmmmm files (a food scientist’s perspective)

Earlier this month, just in time for the Lunar New Year, Dominoes launched a fish pizza.  The toppings?  Fish-shaped fish sticks (fish fingers if you are Australian), pepperoni, green bell peppers, corn, lardons (bacon), and cherry tomatoes.  Fish symbolise wealth and success in China but I’m not sure they belong on a pizza.  Putting corn on a pizza is already bad enough.  Hmmm…

Source: Brandeating.com
Source: Brandeating.com

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Fish mislabelling; malicious fraud or sloppy supply chains?

Nice one, Food Standards Scotland.

What looked at first to be a number of cases of deliberate fraud was given some sensible attention and analysis by Food Standards Scotland (FSS), with unexpected results.  The organisation surveyed fish products supplied to their public sector food outlets, including hospitals and schools, to get a snapshot of the degree of species mislabelling. Of the 264 samples tested, around 6% of those (15) were mislabelled.

Any mislabelling is a breach of trust and a breach of food laws, but a result of 6% is relatively low and not likely to have a large economic impact.  Nevertheless, FSS investigated each of the incidences, retested products and spoke to the suppliers directly.

 

food fraud definition

Product labelled as haddock was the type most often found have been mislabelled during the survey, with ‘haddock’ found to be another fish species in 8 of 50 samples (16%).  As you would expect when considering fish species fraud, the most common substitute for haddock was a cheaper fish, whiting, the two types of fillets having similar appearance, flavour and texture.  Interestingly, however, almost half of all the ‘fraudulent’ samples were in fact an expensive fish (haddock) mislabelled as a cheaper species (whiting or coley).  Those results are obviously not ones you would expect to find when investigating fish fraud, and they are unlikely to be the result of any deliberate attempt to gain an economic advantage.

To the credit of the FSS they uncovered the cause of the mislabelling for most of the incidences; suppliers of the mislabelled fish admitted that they sometimes had trouble identifying incoming block fillets.  Some also admitted that they were not adequately separating or labelling different fish species during processing, handling and packing operations.  The suppliers in question have implemented improvements and have requested better labelling of their suppliers to prevent future occurrences; good news for the Scottish seafood industry.

More information and a copy of the report can be found here

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Natural caffeine. From the things that make me go hmmm files (a food scientist’s perspective)

energy drink claim label natural caffeine
This energy drink contains ‘natural caffeine’. Hmmm…

This afternoon I saw an advertisement for an energy drink that contains

  • No Taurine (sounds okay to me) and
  • Natural Caffeine.

Natural Caffeine.  What is natural caffeine? Actually what is not-natural caffeine?

I did some research and it turns out that the term ‘natural caffeine’ is sometimes used to describe caffeine that has not been synthesised in a laboratory or chemical factory.  Synthetic caffeine and caffeine from natural sources are chemically indistinguishable, so I am not sure why anyone would bother to make the distinction, but it does raise some interesting questions about the use of the word ‘natural’ in food and beverage marketing.   This is becoming a hot topic in food labeling and regulatory circles, and one that is not going to go away.  In fact, the USA FDA has embarked upon an ambitious project to define the term and provide guidance for food labels.  We await the results with bated breath.  In the meantime, I will stick to my favourite source of caffeine; natural, preservative-free black coffee.

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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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The future is purple; five fun food facts

Purple foods are going to be hot in 2016
Purple foods are going to be hot in 2016

 

Purple is my favourite colour so I was happy to see purple foods feature in food industry news this week.  Here is the lowdown on purple foods and four other fun food facts that have caught my eye recently:

  1. Pasta made from crickets has hit the mainstream (or maybe the fringe of the mainstream…) and is available to buy commercially.  The pasta is made with farmed crickets that have been roasted, ground and combined with rice and tapioca to make gluten-free pasta.  It is reported to have a nutty flavour and be high in protein.  Buy your insect pasta here.  Or for the scientifically minded, read the European Food Safety Authority’s report on the risk profile of insects as food and feed.
  2. At Stockholm’s Arlanda airport there is a ‘hotel’ for sourdough starters, the fermented mixtures used for making sourdough bread.  Sourdough starters contain flour, wild yeasts and bacteria and can be maintained for generations, fermenting away between batches of bread.  Individual starters develop their own unique flavours and the older the starter, the tangier the loaf, but a starter needs to be ‘fed’ and watered regularly.  At the sourdough hotel you can leave your starter in the care of an expert baker while you travel.
  3. Prison kitchens put aside a portion from each meal they serve and freeze it in case of a food poisoning outbreak.  The sample is known as a ‘dead man’s tray’.
  4. The experts in food trend predictions are reporting that purple foods are the next big thing.  Purple carrots, berry-based breakfasts, purple yams, purple cauliflower, berry-flavoured dairy products and porridge plus berry drinkable yoghurt are all on the menu for the coming year.
  5. Lobster rolls are also predicted to be huge this year and the good news is you can cook them in your dishwasher while washing your dishes!  Shape Magazine  thoughtfully shares the recipe: put a halved, deveined, de-shelled lobster tail in a mason jar with a stick of unsalted butter and run it through your wash cycle.  Serve in a roll.