Produce from specific countries of origin, such as olive oil or walnuts from a famous region, can achieve top prices in the marketplace. Fraudulent declarations of origin are causing millions of dollars of economic harm every year. Such fraud can be detected by investigating the oxygen isotope ratio, a costly endeavor until now. A newly developed oxygen isotope ratio simulation model eliminates the costly collection of reference data and allows a timely and cost-efficient region of origin determination of a wide array of plants.

Resource

1. University of Basel. (October 11, 2021). “An efficient and low-cost approach to detecting food fraud”. Science Daily.