Globalisation and increasing complexity of food trade provide opportunities and risks to producers. For producers of high quality, safe food, there are increasing opportunities, whilst the risks are associated with inadvertent or fraudulent mislabelling of products causing damage to the brand. Food safety may also be compromised, and it is imperative that traceability system can rapidly and robustly identify the origin of risk, enabling it to be removed from the supply chain. Conventional traceability systems (e.g., labelling, radiofrequency tagging) are good for information transfer and tracking the packaging along a supply chain. However, all such systems are vulnerable to fraud. The Food and Environmental Protection Laboratory (FEPL) of the joint Food and Agriculture Organisation/International Atomic Energy Agency Division is developing systems for the verification of origin and authenticity of foodstuffs using nuclear and related techniques. The parameters measured are inherent properties of the food, therefore extremely difficult to counterfeit. The two types of analysis currently in used are stable isotopes and metabolomics. The stable isotope ratios of bio-elements (H, C, N, O, and S) vary according to different environmental drivers, and their measurement can provide a fingerprint that is unique to origin and history of a product. The relationship of such isotope systems to environmental drivers are understood, enabling predictive models to be developed. Current work shows that the H-isotope composition of milk can be predicted using global rainfall isotope databases. Untargeted metabolite fingerprinting using UPLC-QToF-MS with multivariate data analysis has been applied in the FEPL to identify biomarkers for the detection of fruit juice adulteration, and also to discriminate between various unifloral honeys. The data from honey metabolomic studies were combined with isotopic, elemental, and spectroscopic data to compare the discriminating power of various techniques, alone or in combination.

Application of stable isotope measurements and metabolomics for traceability and authenticity of milk, fruit juices, and honey

248th National Meeting (2014)

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