Food Fraud Quick Bites
Finding the Root Cause for Starch Fraud

By Susanne Kuehne

April 8, 2020

Categories: Compliance, Food Fraud Quick Bites, Food Labs, Food Manufacturing, Foodservice & Retail, RC - Food Fraud

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Image credit: Susanne Kuehne

Due to its lower cost, cassava starch is a common adulterant in higher priced starches, such as for potato and wheat. Tests with droplet digital polymerase chain reaction ddPCR in China uncovered that over 30% of sweet potato starch samples, 25% of cornstarch samples and 40% of potato starch samples were adulterated with cassava starch. Besides the economic impact, this kind of fraud also poses a risk to consumers allergic to cassava.

Resource

Chen, J., et. al. (February 26, 2020). “Identification and quantification of cassava starch adulteration in different food starches by droplet digital PCR”. PLOS One.

About The Author

Susanne Kuehne

Sr. Manager, Business Development

Decernis

Susanne Kuehne joined Decernis in 2016 as senior manager, business development. She has 20+ years of experience in the chemicals, plastics, coatings and beverage spaces. Kuehne is located at the Washington, D.C. office, but is originally from the Stuttgart, Germany area. She studied chemistry and business in Germany, then worked for Grace GmbH in Worms, Germany before moving to the United States in 2000. She worked for Grace in the United States before joining the beverage industry for eight years. Kuehne’s focus is food contact and chemical industry clients world-wide, across the multiple disciplines Decernis covers.

Kuehne holds a Dipl.-Ing (FH) Farbe/Chemie from Fachhochschule fuer Druck, Stuttgart, and a Dipl.-Betriebswirt (FH) from AKAD Fachhochschule, Lahr.

Food Fraud Quick Bites Finding the Root Cause for Starch Fraud

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Food Fraud Quick Bites
Finding the Root Cause for Starch Fraud