A special case: geographical origin control
Geographical origin claims on food labels become more and more important for consumers and legislators around the globe.
Frequent breaches of traceability schemes are reported, and analytical tools to check the origin are necessary to secure supply chains.
Now is it possible to analytically determine a single origin? The answer is no!
On the other hand, it is possible to control whether analytical characteristics of various food products match with reference data from the declared origin.
This approach is routinely used to test the geographical origin of plant and animal products. The former are influenced by their growth environnement, and the latter are influenced by their rearing conditions (drinking water, local feeding). The globalization of feeding of course tends to reduce differences, but local agricultural / industrial practices can still produce discriminatory factors.
Non-food natural products such as textiles, materials, etc. can also be tested for origin.
Eurofins Laboratory Network Offer
The parameters used must be able to demonstrate some discrimination between countries and/or regions of origin. The techniques used usually include multi-element stable isotopes determination by IRMS and NMR profiling. A 100% discrimination of all sources is not possible, but the tests are all the more selective as the characterised area is limited in space.
The basis for interpretation is the use of statistical confidence intervals based on the reference data set. A confidence level >99% is usually used.
- In case a sample is found outside the reference intervals, it means that it cannot belong to the declared origin, and the sample is failed.
- In case a sample is found inside the reference intervals, it means that it can be correctly labelled; still it should be noted that undetectable alternative origins showing the same analytical profile are always a possibility.
Find our solutions per food category
