BfR Annual Report 2015

Another important area of research is the authenticity testing of spices

and dried herbs with main focus on the detection of substances that

were added to stretch the product or feign better quality. The difficulty

in the classical detection of adulteration lies in the fact that only the

substance that is being looked for can normally be found. This means

that a spice/herb sample can be examined more closely for adulter-

ants which are already known (e. g. foreign plant material, starch or

sand), while unknown substances can be overlooked. The goal of the

research was therefore to develop so-called non-targeted methods

which enable the discovery of previously unknown adulterations such

as the addition of unexpected substances. Using a non-targeted meth-

od, the spectroscopic characteristics of the ingredients of a sample,

i. e. its physico-chemical fingerprint, are determined by the combina-

tion of spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis. A new sample can

be tested against a reference database, which is built up by recording

the natural variation on basis of the examination of non-adulterated,

authentic samples. By comparison with the authentic data, it is possible

to identify many different deviations from the anticipated result, such as

products containing deliberate or accidental contaminants/adulterants.

The project ends in June 2016 with an international symposium at the

BfR at which the most important project results will be presented and

discussed with other stakeholders. In addition to this, the research re-

sults have been and will continue to be published in internationally re-

nowned journals and in a special issue of the peer-reviewed scientific

journal “Food Control”. The cooperation with partners at various institu-

tions that has been brought about and intensified through SPICED will

also be used for subsequent collaboration.



The SPICED project has the goal of improving the

safety of spices including dried culinary herbs with

regard to biological and chemical contamination

along the entire food chain.

SPICED – “Securing the spices

and herbs commodity chains

in Europe against deliberate,

accidental or natural biological

and chemical contamination”

Duration:

3 years (1 July 2013 – 30 June 2016)

Total budget:

approx. € 4.6 m

Funding:

approx. € 3.5 m

Coordinator:

Department Biological Safety (BfR)

The project has received funding from

the European Union's 7

Framework

programme for research, technological

development and demonstration under

grant agreement No. 312631.

Detailed information on the

SPICED project at:

www.spiced.eu

Main Topics 2015

Authenticity testing