Project stakeholders
Target groups of the research conducted in AuthenticFood encompasses farmers, certifiers, manufacturers, retailers, consumers, scientists, politicians etc. As organic products are increasingly imported from non-European countries, target groups are found worldwide. Consequently, the research from AuthenticFood is also expected to have an impact on large non-European organic markets such as the United States of America.
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Linkage to other projects
AuthenticFood will initially be based on method development on samples from the DARCOF III project "OrgTrace", which was conducted in Denmark from 2007-2010. This will allow comparison of organic and conventional plants grown under controlled conditions in long-term field trials.
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Project news
| AuthenticFood will be presented at the Biofach conference in Nurnberg 2014. |
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Main outcomes at this stage?
A wide range of analytical methods have been developed and
validated for authentication of organic plant products. These
have been applied to plant samples from Danish and Italian field
trials and independent test-set samples. It has been shown that
several analytical methods have the potential to authenticate the
geographical and/or the agricultural origin of plant products.
Multi-element fingerprint analysis is particularly suitable for
revealing where a plant has been grown due to the inherently
different soil mineralogy of geographical locations across Europe.
When zooming in on individual elements by stable isotope
analysis it is also possible to reveal how a plant has been fertilized
– especially when focusing on isotopes of specific plant
compounds such as amino acids and oxygen containing nutrients.
Metabolomic profiling has also proven valuable for discriminating
between organic and conventional plant products when combined
with multivariate statistics. The final chemical and statistical analyses
are now pending and on this basis a portfolio of the most
suitable combinations of analytical methods and parameters for
specific plant products will be presented. The final project period
will also focus on the practical implementation and dissemination
of project findings to relevant stakeholders and end-users.
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[The AuthenticFood consortium, Rome, November 2013]
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Fast methods for authentication
of organic plant based foods
The AuthenticFood project aims
In AuthenticFood a portfolio of the most promising analytical methods, markers and concepts will be tested for their ability to authenticate organic plant products. The aims are to provide the tools that will ultimately give confidence to consumers by revealing fraudulent substitution of organic with conventionally cultivated products and consequently to promote organic food through assured authenticity.
The market shares for organic products have continuously grown over the last decade even though organic products are being sold at premium prices compared to conventional ones. However, recently there have been a growing number of reported cases, where conventional food products were mislabelled and fraudulently sold as organic. Consequently, there is an urgent need for development and validation of analytical methods, which allow discrimination between organic and conventional food products.
Background
There is an ever-increasing consumer demand for foods of local origin or food cultivated by organic farming practices. However, the organic sector is becoming increasingly dominated by corporate players that may not share some of the less tangible benefits of the organic philosophy. This places an increased burden on certification/inspection bodies and traceability systems on which the authenticity of the organic produce depends. Thus, to assure the authenticity of foods marketed and labelled as "organic", there is a need for robust, accurate and validated analytical control methods.
Benefits of the project
The analytical methods developed in AuthenticFood will be tested on plant samples from rigorously controlled long-term field trials as well as on unprocessed and processed samples from organic and conventional farmers. This will minimize the gap between science and "real life" and thereby ensure a rapid application of the developed methods. The organic sector in general can therefore benefit from this within a short time scale. Consumers are ensured that products labelled as organic have been produced according to the labelling claims while certification and control bodies are given new tools for revealing fraud and mistakes. Thereby trustworthiness of organic produce is retained which will strongly support the sustainability of the organic sector in EU.
Expected results
It is expected that AuthenticFood will deliver valuable inputs to the scientific community regarding development of novel analytical techniques. Due to the involvement of 16 partners from 11 European countries, the project offers a unique possibility to exchange scientists amongst research groups and thereby update and improve their individual analytical skills. AuthenticFood will presumably attract BSc and MSc students and thereby have an educational impact. As organic food production is of great interest to the public, AuthenticFood will inevitably have a policy oriented impact as well. | | Ultimately, AuthenticFood will provide novel analytical tools for authentication of organic plant products and will thereby ensure that the trustworthiness of organic produce is retained and that the organic sector will continuously grow despite recent cases of fraud. |
Main project activities
In AuthenticFood, novel analytical techniques for organic authentication will be developed and tested. These are based on a suite of the most promising analytical methods such as multi-elemental analysis, stable isotope analysis, metabolomics and pesticide screening. Methods will be developed in close collaboration between different European research groups representing different analytical expertises. Results will be explored using multivariate statistics to find markers or multivariate fingerprints that are unique for organic plants and plant products. Finally, a major task of AuthenticFood is results dissemination to consumers, local producers, manufacturers, retailer, politicians etc. as well as publication in peer-reviewed journals.
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Search Organic Eprints
The open archive includes a vast amount of documents on organic certification
Search the open archive
More search options on www.orgprints.org
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promotion of organic food through assured authenticity
16 partners, 11 countries
Coordinator
Professor Doctor Søren Husted, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Life Sciences, Denmark.
Project partners
Cédric Guignard, GL Centre, LU
Cristina Micheloni, AIAB, IT
Erik Andersen, DVFA, DK
Erik Huusfeldt Larsen, DTU Food, DK
Federica Camin, FEMIASMA, IT
Jana Hajslova, ICT, CZ
Johannes, Kahl, UniKa, DE
Marja Särkkä-Tirkkonen, UHEL, FI
Michèle Lees, EAF, FR
Pierre Ott, ECOCERT SA, FR
Randi Seljåsen, Bioforsk, NO
Saskia van Ruth, RIKILT, NL
Simon Kelly, FERA, UK
Torfinn Torp, BIOFORSK, NO
Virgilijus Skulskis, LIAE, LT
Vittorino Crivello, BIOS, IT
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Dissemination
A strong focus will be put on popular science dissemination to consumers, local producers, manufacturers and retailers involved in the organic marked both at the EU and national levels. Popular reports will be targeted at consumers in order to specifically inform this group about the progress which is being made in order to protect them from fraud in the organic sector. Several members of the consortium behind AuthenticFood have significant experience in communicating with popular medias such as newspapers, web based science portals, popular consumer magazines and newsletters aimed at the organic sector. In AuthenticFood we will continue this tradition and publish several popular reports and articles when sufficient data has been collected.
Endusers
The impact of AuthenticFood to target groups is ensured by the inclusion of project partners from the inspection and certification bodies of various European countries with significant expertise in authentication and organic agriculture.
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