AGROLAB News

"Superfood" is predestined for adulteration due to the strong demand on the market. AGROLAB LUFA in Kiel has therefore developed a method for detection.

"Superfoods", like Chia and Quinoa, are still quite popular. This popularity of particularly high-quality products makes them attractive to adulteration and incorrect labelling. Our colleagues in Kiel have therefore developed a method to detect Chia and Quinoa in food. This work has been published it in the well-known Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. To check the authenticity of these two seeds in food, a real-time PCR method based on TaqMan technology was developed and the specificity, cross-reactivity, detection limit, efficiency and robustness were determined. The suitability of this method to determine the authenticity of both foods has been proven by successful application to commercially available mixed samples.

Read the abstract of the article here.

This method was developed as part of the Foodprofiling project, which aims to establish new robust and cost-effective analytical methods to detect fraudulent manipulation.

Author: Dr. Katja Fuchs