FOOD FRAUD IDENTIFICATION IN ARGENTINA

PERAL GARCIA P; LYALL V; ZAPPA ME; GIOVAMBATTISTA G; POSIK DM

Parma

Conferencia; FOODINTEGRITY 2017 CONFERENCE; 2017

Food fraud identification in ArgentinaDiego Posik1,2, Victoria Lyall 1, María Eugenia Zappa1, Guillermo Giovambattista1, Pilar Peral García1.1- Servicio de Diagnóstico Genético en Animales domésticos, Instituto de Genética Veterinaria (IGEVET), CCT La Plata ? CONICET ? Fac. Cs Veterinarias, UNLP, 60 Y 118 S/N, 1900, La Plata, Argentina. 2- Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (CIC BA), Calle 526 entre 10 y 11, CP 1900, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.diego.posik@gmail.comKeywords: food mislabeling, food adulteration, species identification.Detection of food adulteration or contamination is an underdeveloped area in Argentina. At the moment, there are no controls from any state or private organisms to prevent this kind of frauds. In spite of that, in the last years there is an increase demand to solve different issues related to the identification of the species components present in a diversity of food and food products. In the present work we introduce the main cases resolved in our laboratory, mainly food crime, coming out to give response to judicial authority. These cases were solved using different DNA extraction methods depending of the types of matrices such as organic extraction, DNAzol®, magnetic beads DNA extraction kit, silica columns, etc. Genotyping was done using PCR-RFLP, PCR using species specific primers, DNA sequencing, pirosequencing, among others.A cheese sold as pure goat generates an allergy reaction to a person who knows was allergic to cow proteins. This fact leads him to demand to its producer. A DNA analysis revealed that actually the cheese was adulterated with cow milk. A market survey of a Patagonian city carried out by the Town Hall Bromatology Department allowed to detect that in a butchery a sausage supposedly from beef was adulterated with horse meat. Game meat is an alternative to domestic animals meat. However, protected deer species as the marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus) or the pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus) are hunted illegally in protected areas and sold as different kind of meat in informal markets. Species origin identification of this meat concern equally to food authorities as well as fauna wildlife authorities. A simple DNA analysis allows distinguishing if an illicit was perpetrated.In all the cases these methods allowed to resolve successfully the issues raised, showing the food contamination or adulteration, providing evidences for justice cases resolution and assuring food quality and integrity.