Regulations in many countries worldwide prescribe that peanut must be listed on food labels as a cause of food allergies. Re-evaluated voluntary incidental trace allergen labelling (VITAL) values for peanut revealed the eliciting dose (ED01) value—at which 99% of all peanut-allergic individuals will not react—is 0.2 mg peanut protein. Validation of a sandwich ELISA based on monoclonal antibodies to detect peanut proteins. Non-processed and processed samples are extracted by an easy procedure at 60°C within 10 min. The measurement range is between 0.75 and 6 mg/kg peanut using a national institute of standards and technology (NIST) reference material as calibrator. The system shows no cross-reactivity against 91 different food commodities. The LOD was 0.15 mg/kg for food matrixes such as cookies, milk chocolate, ice cream, trail mix, puffed rice cereal, and granola bar. LOQ was verified at a level of 0.75 mg/kg. Recovery studies with incurred milk chocolate and ice cream revealed consistent recoveries between 67 and 85%. Mean recoveries for incurred cookies depend on the baking temperature and time and ranged from 60 to 109%. Repeatability was between 5.2 and 12.3%, whereas relative intermediate precision was between 6.4 and 13.0%. The results for incurred cookies and milk chocolate in the independent laboratory study showed mean recoveries between 99 and 104% with RSDs between 3.56 and 19.5% under repeatability conditions. The results from the in-house validation study and the independent lab confirmed that the method is accurate and in accordance with requirements laid down in Standard Method Performance Requirement 2017.020. RIDASCREEN® Peanut quantifies proteins from peanut in a wide range of food categories.
Background: Reports of incidents associated with the misrepresentation of food products as well as the adulteration of their composition leading, at times, to significant public health impacts are being recorded. Objective: This paper aims at summarizing the outputs of three workshops dedicated to the theme "Global Understanding of Food Fraud" (GUFF), held in Quebec City in Canada (April 2017), Beijing in the People's Republic of China (October 2017) and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (October 2018). Method: Based on the contributions made at these workshops, the paper reviews current knowledge related to food fraud shared by experts and stakeholders representing the food industry sector, food regulators both domestically and internationally and scientists from Academia. It also discusses approaches available to the industry across the food supply chain to predict, prevent, and possibly mitigate food fraud, inclusive of targeted and non-targeted methods of analysis. Results and Conclusions: The paper offers a discussion on areas warranting the mobilization of efforts and resources of the food stakeholder community to reach consistent and accessible guidance on food fraud prevention, validated analytical methods along with an increased emphasis on prevention in food regulatory measures targeting food fraud. Further development is needed to reach consistent and accessible guidance on food fraud prevention, validated analytical methods, along with an emphasis on food fraud prevention. Highlights: Food fraud is receiving increased attention from consumers, regulators, and industry. International food fraud experts were invited to three workshops. Contributions and conclusions from the workshops are reported and discussed.