Aussies use Kiwi tests to detect counterfeit food
Growing concern in Australia about product fraud is proving profitable for a Dunedin company using ‘‘fingerprinting’’ techniques to authenticate food, fibre and pharmaceuticals.
Oritain Global recently opened an office in Sydney and chief executive Grant Cochrane said recent cases involving honey, beef, and wine had made Australian businesses more aware of the importance of traceability, particularly in relation to the Asian market where food fraud was a real challenge.
Using techniques borrowed from forensic science, the company tests for trace elements in the environment where products are grown, and develops a unique ‘‘fingerprint’’ to provide proof of origin.
Oritain’s Australian clients include Farm Pride eggs and cotton producer Auscott, and it has just signed up a major dairy company wanting traceability for its infant formula.
‘‘Consumers definitely want to know where their food comes from, and Oritain’s proof of origin technology can offer that reassurance,’’ Cochcrane said.
In a recent case the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission fined Basfoods more than $30,000 for selling Victoria honey that was made in Turkey from corn and sugar cane, and said it would pursue others allegedly misrepresenting honey products.
Oritain’s Australian marketing manager, Sandon Adams, said vulnerability to food fraud was a major focus at a recent food safety conference in Sydney. Proof of authenticity was something companies had to face up to and they could not palm off responsibility onto ingredient suppliers.
‘‘If you are the brand owner, accountability will always sit with you. And if there’s a crisis they don’t go and fine the wholesaler of the ingredients – they investigate the brand owner, and you are potentially up for charges.’’
Adams said prime candidates for testing were exports of fresh milk and red meat.
‘‘Anecdotally what’s sold in China as Australian beef is three times [the volume of] what we export to them, so that means twothirds is counterfeit.’’
Adams said Oritain had also done work for water companies.
‘‘[Bottled water] may claim to be from a spring or an aquifer, but who knows?’’
With fibres such as wool and cotton, testing could show whether substitutions had occurred during manufacturing, Adams said.