Detection of the adulteration of camel milk powder with cow milk by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)

Abstract

Economically motivated milk powder adulteration is an emerging and serious food safety problem in China. An effective method for detecting fraudulent addition of cow milk to camel milk powder by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), employing the bovine β-lactoglobulin as an adulteration marker, is described. The calibration curve showed good linearity for adulterated milk powder samples, with the linear correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9978. The limit of detection of the adulteration for camel milk powder was 5%. Finally, this method was successfully applied to examine 20 batches of commercial camel milk products, and 8 of them were found to be adulterated with a high level of cow milk (>5%). The findings indicated that this new developed UPLC method could be applied as a simple and effective technique for the routine authentication of camel milk powder products.