| Abstract: |
Food fraud represents a major problem in Europe, highlighted by the recent horse meat scandal in which beef was adulterated with horse by as much as 100% in some cases. Since that episode, the EU has created a new Food Fraud Network for more efficient cross-border administrative assistance and cooperation to try and stamp out incidents of this type. However, food fraud remains an attractive activity for organised crime due to the high profits that can be made at a lower risk of detection compared with other illegal activities such as drug and cigarette smuggling. The conventional techniques for food testing include immunoassay, which is susceptible to errors due to cross reactivity and protein denaturation by thermal treatment. The acknowledged alternative is DNA-based but it cannot distinguish between different tissues from the same species such as beef and milk or chicken and egg white. |
