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Eight things you need to know about GM salmon

  1. AquAdvantage Salmon is the first transgenic animal to be approved for food in the USA. The US FDA announced that the salmon is safe to eat in 2015.
  2. A transgenic animal is one that has been genetically modified by adding genes from other species. In this case, the Atlantic salmon was modified with genes from Chinook salmon and ocean pout (a perch-like fish with good tolerance to low temperatures).
  3. The FDA review and assessment process took 20 years.
  4. The FDA’s safety assessment considered risks to people who are allergic to fish. The allergenicity of AquAdvantage Salmon was found to be no different to other types of salmon.
  5. The fish are only allowed to be raised in tanks in land-locked areas to prevent them from cross-breeding with other fish.
  6. The developers of the fish are promoting their environmental benefits, including less ocean pollution and a reduced requirement for wild-caught fish which are used as feed when farming salmon. The GM fish eat less and grow to market weight faster than conventionally farmed salmon.
  7. Food from transgenic organisms, including AquAdvantage Salmon has to be labelled as such in the United States.
  8. Michele Henry, Toronto Food Writer, describes the eating experience as “Exquisite”
Source: AquaBounty.com
Source: AquaBounty.com

Updated: November 2020.

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Raw Material Specifications

Raw material specifications are an important defence against food fraud for all food businesses.  Whether you are a restaurant, a specialty grocer, delicatessen, central kitchen, hotel or manufacturer, you are susceptible to food fraud.  Robust specifications can help to protect your food business from inadvertently purchasing, using or serving fraudulent ingredients and raw materials.  They can also help to protect your business from the financial fall-out if things go wrong.

Fraudulent materials include:

Modern Dairy food-processing industry Worker On A Milk Factory

Specifications for raw materials and ingredients should contain the following information:

  1. Name of the material
  2. A description of the material, including biological, chemical and physical characteristics
  3. Composition of the material, including additives and processing aids
  4. Country of origin
  5. Method of production
  6. Packaging format/s or unit of measure
  7. Delivery method/s
  8. A description of the labelling, lot ID and coding for traceability
  9. Storage conditions and shelf life
  10. Preparation and/or handling before use
  11. Acceptance and rejection criteria
  12. Requirements for certificates of analysis for high risk materials or vulnerable materials
  13. Special requirements such as allergen information, organic status, GMO status, fair-trade and ethical sourcing policies
  14. Information about compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements, where relevant
  15. A requirement for suppliers to notify of any authenticity issues with the product
  16. A requirement for suppliers to notify of any changes to the product
  17. Formal agreement between the supplier and purchaser
  18. Document control features, such as author, date and page numbers.

Download our excellent template today

How to develop a raw material specification:

  • Create a template that suits the needs of your business.  A tabular format is easy to work with.  Include all of the sections above, even if you don’t think you will use them now, or if they are not relevant to some of your materials.  You can always leave them blank.
  • You should create a separate specification for every unique material, do not create category-level specifications.
  • Obtain product specifications from your suppliers and use them to add key criteria to your specifications.
  • Add any extra criteria that will help you to control the quality, safety and authenticity of your products.  It is useful to imagine that you are receiving the material at your door or loading dock; what would you like to know about the material before you accept it? For example: Is it at the correct temperature?  Is it properly labelled?  Is the packaging undamaged with no evidence of tampering?  Is the material free of undeclared allergens?  Does it have the fat content you expect?  Has it been aged (meat) for as long as you expect?  Is it free from salmonella?  Use these questions to check that you have included all important criteria in your specification.
  • Don’t forget to include requirements for suppliers to have a food safety certificate, licence, approval or registration, where relevant.
  • If you are purchasing materials under fixed supplier contracts (as would be the case for  food manufacturers), the draft specifications will need to be approved by your purchasing department and by the suppliers themselves before they can be formally issued and implemented.
  • Review each specification at least annually and update the issue/review date.

Need help?

Contact Us Today

Our food safety and authenticity experts can develop your purchasing specifications. Click here for a free introductory consultation.

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Five things every food safety professional should know about food fraud

1. Food fraud is in the spotlight

Food fraud has been around for thousands of years but has become more prominent in the food safety and food certification industry in the last few years, following the European horse meat scandal of 2013.  Although no food safety problems arose during that incident, it was realised that similar incidences could have serious impacts on food safety.  For that reason, food fraud prevention requirements were introduced into all major food safety management system standards between 2017 and 2020.

2. New terminology

Definitions related to food fraud and food integrity have been refined in the last five years and there is now consensus on the four key terms below, although the term food security still causes confusion.

food fraud,defense,safety,security

  • Food safety relates to issues of unintentional contamination, with the aim of reducing exposure to naturally occurring hazards, errors and failures in food systems.
  • Food fraud was defined by  Spink and Moyer (2011) as “a collective term used to encompass the deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering, or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients, or food packaging; or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain.”  More recently that definition has been updated to capture all types of food crime: Food fraud is deception, using food, for economic gain (Food Fraud Initiative, Michigan State University).  Within food fraud there are types of fraud that involve tampering with the food by adulterating or diluting the food.  This type of fraud is sometimes called ‘economically motivated adulteration’ (EMA).  Other types of fraud that do not involve adulteration are also deemed to be ‘food fraud’.  These include black market and grey market sales, theft, illegal importing, avoidance of tax and counterfeiting.
  • Food defence is a term that has come to be defined as the effort to prevent acts of adulteration that are intended to cause harm to a food business or to consumers, such as acts of terrorism or attempted extortion.
  • Food security is unrelated to food fraud but is instead an issue of food supply and food access for populations who are under threat from food shortages.

Other terms to know:

  • Vulnerability assessments are assessments of vulnerability to food fraud, either at the raw material, product or facility level.  Within the USA the term vulnerability assessment can also refer to a food facility’s vulnerability to malicious tampering of product on its site, either by its own employees or external forces.   Learn more about vulnerability assessments.
  • Horizon scanning is the act of looking for and analysing threats and opportunities that will emerge in the medium to long term.  Within the food industry, horizon scanning means the act of collecting information about current trends and predicted incidences that could increase the likelihood of food fraud for a particular food material.  For example, climate change is likely to reduce coffee production which could drive up prices and increase fraudulent activity in that sector.
Coffee,authentic,fraud,horizon scanning
Coffee harvests are being affected by climate change

 

3. Food safety standards have become more rigorous

Food fraud prevention and mitigation measures are now a requirement of all major food safety management system standards.  The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), a group of food companies whose mission is to harmonize, strengthen, and improve food safety management systems around the globe, sets guidance for food safety standards.  Well known GFSI standards include BRC, FSSC 22000 and SQF.  Between 2015 and 2017, all GFSI food safety standards were updated to include requirements for food companies to perform a food fraud vulnerability assessment and have a food fraud mitigation plan in place.   Click here for the GFSI Food Fraud Position Paper.

The new requirements for vulnerability assessments and mitigation plans require more resources for most food businesses, particularly those with large numbers of raw materials and suppliers.

4. There are new regulatory requirements for food businesses

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in the USA has been implemented for most food businesses in the previous few years.  Within the FSMA rules, food businesses are required to address hazards from adulterants introduced for the purposes of economic gain.  These must be included in food safety hazard analyses and if hazards are found, preventive controls must be implemented.  This means that economically motivated adulteration (EMA), a subset of food fraud, must be addressed under the new FSMA rules.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) also includes specific requirements for ‘food defense’ which are aimed at preventing malicious adulteration and tampering as well as fraudulent adulteration.  This is known as the Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule.  The IA rule is being progressively implemented in the USA.  FSMA rules for IA will also be enforced internationally for all food facilities that manufacture food for export to America.  Click here for US FDA’s food defense guidance

food defense,vulnerability assessment,FSMA,
All American food companies will be required to have a food defense plan

 

5.  Detection of food fraud remains a challenge, despite new lab techniques

Our ability to detect food fraud has improved over the last few years, but challenges remain.  There are many technologies available, from traditional ‘wet’ chemical tests to spectroscopy and chromatography to modern forensic DNA methods.   Protein isoelectrofocusing (a type of electrophoresis) is a conventional test that provides information about the source of various milk proteins in a cheese and can be used to detect cows milk in “buffalo milk” mozzarella, for example.  PCR (polymerase chain reaction) techniques, in which a cow milk-specific gene is amplified and detected are being developed for cheese testing and they are claimed to be more specific.

Coffee variety testing has traditionally been done using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, a method that exploits the different amounts of chlorogenic acid and caffeine in robusta and arabica varieties.  However, a new method that exploits the different mitochondrial genetic markers in the two varieties will soon be able to achieve the same results quickly and easily in the field with ‘lab on a chip’ technology.

Researchers looking for fraudulent aloe vera can exploit its distinctive NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) profile, due to the position of acetate groups within a key polysaccharide in the plant.  The NMR profile represents a ‘fingerprint’ for aloe vera.

Another type of ‘fingerprinting’ is based on the spectra created by different ratios of stable isotopes.  For example, it is possible to tell the difference between corn-fed and wheat-fed chicken, using stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry by comparison with databases of reference samples.  This method has also been used to check provenance claims for meat and wine products.

Authentic beef mince
What meat is that?

 

Despite the surge in technology surrounding food fraud detection, it remains difficult to detect fraudulent adulteration unless you know what you are looking for.  As an example, DNA testing can be used to determine if beef mince has been made from a cow but can’t tell me whether it has been adulterated with undeclared beef offal.  Olive oil that is suspected of having been adulterated with other edible oil can easily be tested for such adulteration in a lab test, but verifying its country of origin is more difficult.  Adulteration of ‘arabica’ coffee with the cheaper robusta variety can be detected with a simple test but that same test will not disclose whether ground coffee has been adulterated with cheaper fillers such as corn, soybean or wheat, a practice which is common in some markets.  There are now a number of ‘fingerprinting’ techniques that are designed to ‘flag’ any sample that is not authentic, no matter what the adulterant, however they can only be used if there is already an extensive database of authentic samples with which to compare the suspect sample.  Australian honey brand owners who were caught with supposedly inauthentic honey in an NMR-based fingerprint test claimed that the database used in the testing, which was done in Germany, was not suitable for testing Australian honeys.  Read more about the Australian honey scandal.

We have a lot of tools in our arsenal to answer questions about fraudulent food but those tools are only useful if we ask the right questions.

Need to learn more?  Want practical advice from expert food scientists? Click here for a free introductory consultation.

 

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September food fraud update; trade wars, fruit scares and spuds

The ‘trade war’ between the USA and China is really hotting up, with China having imposed import tariffs of up to 25% on US lobsters and other food products in the previous 2 months.  The presence of tariffs greatly increases the risk of fraudulent cross-border activities; Food Fraud Advisors predicts that the new China tariffs will lead to significantly more food fraud within the Chinese-American trade sector as well as having a knock-on affect on food trade internationally.

There have already been allegations of fraud related to the tariff imposition in the North American lobster market.  Canadian lobsters can be imported to China without incurring the tariffs imposed on lobsters from the United States.  It has been alleged that lobsters grown in the USA are being shipped to Canada, re-labeled as Canadian lobsters then exported to China.  Canadian lobster growers fear damage to the ‘Canada’ brand from these activities.

The strawberry scandal in Australia has hit local consumers, retailers and growers hard.  It started with two consumers in the state of Queensland finding metal needles inside fresh strawberries.  The affected brand and its sister brand from the same grower were pulled from shelves.  Within days another needle-like object was found in strawberries from a different brand in a different state; the fruit source was completely different and the incident was labelled a ‘copycat crime’.  In Australia strawberries are typically sold to consumers in clear clam-shell containers with four air holes in the top surface.  The air holes are large enough to allow access to the fruit inside with a small sharp object like a needle while the strawberries are displayed on a supermarket (grocery store) shelf.  Public response has been confusion; why would anyone want to do such a thing?  Since then, other fruits, including apples and bananas have been similarly affected, again, in what appear to be completely independent occurrences.  The food safety sector in Australia is at a loss as to how to prevent this type of incident; fruit is by necessity displayed and accessible for consumers to touch prior to purchase, leaving it vulnerable to malicious adulteration.

Meanwhile, strawberry growers in Australia, who were already struggling to get good prices for their bumper harvest, have seen demand for their fruit plummet.  Media outlets have published reports about farmers who are dumping tonnes of unwanted fruit because the wholesale price has fallen below the cost of production.

Whole potatoes are generally thought to be at low risk of food fraud because of their relatively low value and because of their easily recognisable form.  However, like all fruit and vegetables, they are at risk of being misrepresented with respect to their geographic origin and their variety.  Growers groups have demanded that government authorities investigate allegations of potato fraud in Ireland, after a successful campaign to encourage consumption of locally-grown Queen potatoes.  It has been alleged that imported potatoes and potatoes of other varieties are being re-labelled as Irish Queen potatoes, providing an economic gain for the perpetrators of this fraud.

 

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How to design a food fraud testing plan

Authenticity testing of ingredients and foods is an important tool in the fight against food fraud, but it’s not easy to get it right.  Here are our recommendations to help you design a food authenticity testing plan.

  1. First define the goals of the testing plan.  Because different materials have different food fraud risk profiles, you will need a different testing protocol for each material that you want to test.  For each material to be tested, choose a test type and laboratory and set accept-reject criteria for test results.  Use our testing checklist to help.
  2. Decide how samples will be collected, and define the sample size with the help of your chosen laboratory. For each lot or batch of material that needs to be tested, figure out how to obtain a sample that is properly representative of that batch. Sampling protocols will depend on the size of the lot, the form of the food (solid, liquid, bulk, etc.) and the practicalities of accessing materials within the batch.  Learn more about sampling protocols from the US FDA’s laboratory manual.
  3. Choose a frequency of testing for each material and document it in the plan.
  4. Write down your goals, test methods, accept/reject criteria, sampling procedures and approved laboratories.  This written information will be the foundation for your testing plan document. Add a description of what action you will take if you get results that confirm or imply authenticity problems with the sample. Who will you report the results to? Who is responsible for making decisions about actions to be taken?  Add document control features and file the plan within the food fraud section of your food safety management system.
  5. Implement your plan.  Be prepared to change your test frequencies or test methods as new information becomes available.  Review your test plan at least annually to make sure it aligns with your food fraud vulnerability assessment results.

Read this next: Food fraud testing frequency: how often should you test?

 

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Food testing checklist

Like many other food safety and quality professionals, perhaps you are thinking about implementing a testing program for food fraud detection.  Are there vulnerabilities in your supply chain? Maybe you are buying products or raw materials that are on our food fraud hot list, or perhaps your food fraud vulnerability assessments identified materials that might be affected by food fraud.

Food authenticity testing laboratory lab

Testing is an important tool in the fight against food fraud, but it’s not always easy to get it right. Are you prepared for testing? Before you begin to contact laboratories, make sure you can answer these questions:

  • Do you need a ‘snap-shot’ of a product at a single point in time or are you aiming to build a longer-term picture of authenticity?
  • Are you acting on any specific information, such as a tip-off or allegation from a competitor?
  • Is there a particular adulterant you need to look for?
  • Are you a brand owner checking possible counterfeits or diverted products to determine if they are legitimate?
  • Do you need the test results to stand up in a court of law or other legal scenario?
  • Is the test material a single agricultural product or a processed multi-component food?
  • Is the material shelf stable or will it need special sample storage/transport conditions between sampling and testing?
  • Is the testing needed to check on credence claims, for example, organic, free-range, country of origin?
  • Do you need qualitative or quantitative results? For example do you need to know if an adulterant is present or absent in the tested material or do you also need to know the amount of the adulterant that might be present?
  • What level of certainty do you require?
  • How much time have you got?
  • What’s your budget?

And finally…

  • Are you prepared for what you might find; do you have a plan of action to take if food fraud is detected?

There are many laboratories that perform some type of food authenticity testing, but few that perform many types. Expect to speak to a number of different laboratories before you find one that can meet your needs.

Read this next: How to design an authenticity testing program

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Fraudulent practices cost chicken processor £37m

A large chicken processing business, 2 Sisters was the biggest supplier of supermarket chicken in the United Kingdom with a turnover of £1.1 billion in 2017.  During that year, an undercover investigation revealed poor hygiene practices and tampering with date codes was taking place at one of the firm’s processing plants in West Bromwich.  Investigators also alleged that products returned from distribution centres that should have been destroyed were repackaged as if they were fresh, and that the ‘kill dates’ for chickens were deliberately misrepresented so as to extend the expiry date of the finished products.

The Food Standards Agency investigated and in addition found fraudulent practices within the Salmonella testing of the carcasses.  Salmonella testing is a regulatory requirement in the United Kingdom.  In the wake of the investigations, operations at one plant were suspended for 2 weeks, while another was closed permanently.  In April, it was announced that another plant, in Scotland will be closed later this year.

This week, 2 Sisters reported losses of £38 million for the year, a figure that was reported to have ‘ballooned’ by 80% after the fraudulent practices were uncovered.