Scientists develop new tool to identify meat in shop-bought meals

The new tool is developed to detect the types of meat contained in a product

Scientists in Aberdeen have developed a tool which they say will help tackle so-called food fraud and the addition of "rogue ingredients" to meals.

The system developed at the University of Aberdeen's Rowett Institute can identify the type of meat in shop-bought meals, and the breed of animal it comes from.

They say MEATiCode will help to determine the authenticity of the product and prevent cross contamination.

Food fraud - purposely altering, misrepresenting or mislabeling a product - is estimated to cost the UK about £2bn a year.

Those behind the technology, which is able to identify multiple meat species in one product, said it was the first of its kind and will help to protect consumers and improve food satefy.

Scientists analysed beef, pork, chicken, lamb in their tests of shop-bought meals and found two cases where the meat was not as advertised.

The results from one kebab showed none of the 14% lamb advertised was present.

Another item which was said to be 60% lamb and 20% chicken was shown to contain twice as much chicken as lamb.

In 17 other meals the meat content of the product was as advertised.

Labelling a product wrongly can cause issues for those allergic to certain products or who cannot eat certain types of meat for religious reasons.

Project lead Renata Garbellini Duft said: "When you buy a burger in the supermarket you do not know what is inside - you just have to trust the label.

"But using this method we know exactly what is inside.

"In one single experiment we can detect a lot of different species."

Renata Garbellini Duft led the project

Samples of meat are put into the machine and analysed against a database of eight species of meat by identifying unique peptides - short chains of amino acids - in the food.

This provides a clear picture of where the food has come from.

It has also been shown to be able to drill down far enough to identify particular breeds, such as Aberdeen Angus.

"It is a growing concern," Ms Garbellini Duft explained.

"Maybe it can lead to more testing and less money will be lost on food fraud.

"We hope this can help the meat industry to protect especially the local producers or some farms where they have this high quality meat."

After working on meat, the team hopes to move on to honey which is said to be "one of the most frauded products".

They will also look into assessing whisky and adapting the technique to detect allergens such as nuts, fish and dairy products.