Food forensics: using DNA technology to combat misdescription and fraud

Abstract

The fraudulent misdescription of food contents on product labels is a widespread problem, particularly with high added-value products commanding a premium price. Proving conclusively that fraud has occurred requires the detection and quantification of food constituents. These are often biochemically similar to the materials they replace, making their identification and measurement extremely difficult. Despite the fact that food matrices are extremely complex and variable, a variety of the molecular markers used to physically map genomes have now been successfully adapted for detection of food substitution. These successes include the speciation of meats, fish and fruit in processed food products, the identification of the geographical origin of olive oil, the detection of dilution of Basmati rice with non-Basmati varieties and the quantitative detection of neuronal tissue and offal in processed meat.