133rd AOAC Annual Meeting and Exposition. Denver (CO, USA), September 10, 2019
These days, every stakeholder in the food supply chain seems to talk about food fraud. Yet, when it comes to analyzing for food fraud, it appears that the number of laboratory tests conducted is actually low. The pain points for the stakeholders are that such tests are time-consuming and costly, specially for those testing in the middle or end of the food chain, where the fraudulent product has already reached the market.
Over recent years, several portable devices have come to the market allowing buyers and quality control managers to perform on the spot checks and be proactive. Such devices can test for spoilage, adulteration, toxic compounds, mycotoxins and in some cases also pesticides. The easy-to-use devices can overcome challenges of traditional laboratory analyses but also come with some challenges of their own. The session “Food Fraud Detection Goes Mobile” gave an overview over devices available as well as demonstrating the capabilities of some of the device to the audience, like the on-the-spot check for melamine. This session was one of the best-attended session of the AOAC annual meeting in Denver (CO).
Gina Ross
Gina Ross of WUR, the first presenter, mentioned that for smart-phone camera-based analysis, colour schemes like RGB and CYMK are less useful, and app developer are moving to cieLAB, in order to allow comparability of read-outs between smart phones. She also mentioned several applications which were developed as part of the FoodSmartPhone.eu project. These include rapid antibody selection using SPR and a smartphone-based flow cytometer.
Mark Lessard
Mark Lessard of Thermo Fisher presented the developments of X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF), from laboratory-based devices filling an entire room in the 60’s to handheld analyzers in 2019. Mark explained the areas of application of handheld XRF, which include, for example, authentication of old paintings, detection of heavy metals in children’s toys and the quantification of minerals in commodities like rice. He mentioned that the XRF fingerprint of a substance is recorded and simultaneously, a CCD camera takes a picture of what the device is pointed at. Typical areas of the non-destructive XRF application are metals (minerals), foreign bodies, insects, ceramics and plastics.
Sandra Salleres
Sandra Salleres Alonso of Biolan MB reported about portable enzymatic biosensors. Such biosensors in portable devices have been developed for the detection of adulteration in wine and milk, as well as measuring the histamine levels of tuna. She explained that fresh tuna attracts very high prices, while frozen tune does not. The opportunity for fraudsters lies in selling frozen tuna as fresh after thawing. Thawed tuna is often treated with illegal compounds like nitrites and ascorbic acid to regain the bright red colour typical of fresh tuna. Inferior quality and thawed tuna are often accompanied by high histamine levels, which can lead to intoxication and symptoms similar to allergic reactions. Histamine intoxication is among the most common intoxication related to fish consumption. The mobile biosensor can detect and quantify excessive histamine levels and only requires minimal sample preparation.
Wilfried Hermes
Wilfried Hermes of trinamix presented “Hertzstück”, a miniaturized NIR detector, able to detect freshness in certain food products as well as nutritional composition. He envisions that the sensor, which works at wavelengths between 1 and 3 μm, will be found routinely in smartphones in four years from now. Wilfried demonstrated live the detection of melamine in milk using this sensor, where the actual reading took less than a second.
Gianpaolo Rando
Gianpaolo Rando of SwissDeCode presented the capabilities of the LAMP-based detection device, and showed that this technology allows easy and on-site detection of A1/A2 milk mixtures. Gianpaolo mentioned that other applications, e.g. for DNA-based detection of authentic Swiss cheese can be build using the LAMP technology.
Bert Popping
Bert Popping of FOCOS – Food Consulting Strategically mentioned that those devices demonstrated only represent a very small number of mobile food safety and authenticity devices which are either already on the market or which will be emerging shortly. Bert Predicted that these devices will shift the first line of defense of food safety testing from laboratories to farms and factories. He also emphasized that there is an urgent need to ensure such devices are fit-for-purpose. Bert stated that the work of the AOAC Task Force on Food Authenticity is crucial as it will develop SMPRs (Standard Method Performance Requirements), with which also the mobile devices will have to comply. He called for device developers to have their devices independently, third-party validated to ensure reliable results.
