Food Fraud Quick Bites
It’s in Their DNA

By Susanne Kuehne

August 9, 2021

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

Find records of fraud such as those discussed in this column and more in the Food Fraud Database, owned and operated by Decernis, a Food Safety Tech advertiser. Image credit: Susanne Kuehne.

Spices have been an ongoing hot target for fraudulent activity, whether it is the addition of inedible substances like dyes, or bulking agents, such as brick powder, other plant material, sawdust and many other, potentially hazardous substances. A relatively new technology, next-generation sequencing (NGS), enables to analyze the DNA of complex samples such as spices and herbs. The DNA findings are compared to a database and allow to detect many thousands of species in one test. Currently, working groups are developing standardized methods for such authenticity tests.

Resource

Woolfe, M. (July 13, 2021). “NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) is Helping to Prevent Fraud in the Herb and Spice Trade”. Food Authenticity Network.

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 It’s in Their DNA

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Food Fraud Quick Bites
It’s in Their DNA