Exposing the food cheats

Over the New Year, you might have heard excerpts from Bee Wilson’s book “Swindled – The Dark History of Food Cheats” on BBC Radio 4. The book describes the history of food fraud starting with the appalling, rampant and dangerous adulteration of many common foods, especially in the early 19th century. It relates the achievements of Arthur Hassall, who can be considered the founder of food control in England. He used microscopy to show the heavy adulteration of coffee and spices, as well as the poor state of London’s drinking water. It was his systematic and large study of 2,500 food samples that eventually led to the first overarching legislation protecting consumers from adulterated and dangerous food in 1860, and the establishment of laboratories called public analysts to enforce the legislation.

My colleague Dr Mark Woolfe and his team have been leading the way in applying the most modern scientific techniques available to uncover cases of food fraud and misdescription and I am pleased to see the FSA’s contributions highlighted by this broadcast.

Following in Hassall’s tradition, the Agency has been adapting most of the DNA methods it has developed so that they can be used by public analysts to enforce the law. This transfer has been achieved by adapting the methods so that they can be run on lab on a chip equipment, which is simple and cheap to use, yet a robust platform. The chip enables DNA amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to be separated, visualised and sized. Different types of assays can be used in this format and public analysts in England, Scotland and Wales have been encouraged to use this system as a first introduction to DNA technology.

In order to ensure that the methods developed by the Agency are effectively transferred to public analysts, the Agency has so far funded training courses on identifying fish species and authenticating Basmati rice. Given the success of these courses, the Agency is planning to hold further courses as methods are completed in detecting adulteration of durum wheat pasta and fruit juices, as well as identifying exotic and common meat species.

I am sure if Hassall were alive today he would be proud that his example is being followed by the Agency in both the application of state-of-the-art methods to protect consumers and their transfer to public analysts.