Authenticating genuine Kakadu plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana) powders from fakes using stable isotope analysis and elemental profiling

Abstract

Kakadu plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana) is a plant species endemic to northern Australia, attracting increasing consumer interest due to its multiple nutritional qualities. As a consumer product at a premium price point, the Kakadu plum may be susceptible to food fraud. This paper determines the prevalence of food fraud in the e-commerce Kakadu plum market. We applied stable isotope analysis (SIA) and elemental profiling using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) through Itrax to evaluate the authenticity of 13 commercially available Kakadu plum powdered samples purchased from Australian and overseas suppliers against four powdered samples directly provided by First Nations harvesters. Overseas and Australian-sourced powders were found to have distinct isotopic and elemental profiles. All overseas powders showed highly enriched δ13C values indicating they are fakes, not derived from Kakadu plum. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (nMDS) of elements also displayed distinct groupings between Australian-sourced and overseas powders, whilst analysis of similarity percentages (SIMPER) differentiated the elemental composition between groups. It was also observed that 89% of overseas products sold as Kakadu plum were deceptively labelled as other products. These results showed food fraud occurred along the supply chain of overseas-sourced product. Given the complexities of multi-national food systems, utilising a combination of stable isotopes and elemental profiling are straightforward applications for detecting fraudulent products.