The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has announced that it now has a new DNA scanning tool to identify the entire DNA content of a food. The tool can proactively identify all the ingredients and their biological sources in a food, which will aid regulators in protecting consumers in relation to potential food fraud and/or misleading labelling. The idea is to compare the actual ingredients in a food, identified by their DNA profile, with those declared on the label.
According to Dr Pat O’Mahony, Chief Specialist, Food Science and Technology, FSAI this applied use of next generation sequencing is unique in a regulatory context and will be a significant new asset for regulators to identify exactly what is contained in a food and if that matches what is stated on the product’s labelling. It is now possible to scan the entire DNA content of a food without any prior knowledge or suspicion of what may or may not be present in that food.