Addressing complex and critical food integrity issues using the latest analytical technologies

Supported by:

18 March 2016

The ability to deliver safe, nutritious and authentic food to the world’s growing population is one of the most important and challenging tasks. To cope with this the supply systems of many commodities have become global in nature and are often very complex with multiple players involved. The potential for contamination of foods due to this complexity has increased considerably. When issues arise the ability to identify the cause of the contamination and origin of the food material implicated is often difficult and sometimes impossible.

Of growing concern is the deliberate contamination of foods driven by economic gain. Food fraud has been in existence for many hundreds of years due as global food systems become more complex the opportunities for fraud have greatly increased and the impact these have on consumer health and trust. In 2011 a large study showed that over one third of all fish sold in the US have some sort of fraud associated with it. In Europe in 2013 the red meat supply system was shown to be infiltrated by criminal activity and thus the term food crime emerged.

Food testing is one of the key roles of deterring and detecting food fraud. Due to the multiple types of fraud that can be perpetrated the challenges to be able to identify these are enormous and in some cases still impossible. A review of the types of fraud, the challenges to their detection and the potential for a paradigm shift in detection using rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry will be given.

This webinar consisted of:

• Presentation from Chris Elliot (Professor of Food Safety and Director of the Institute for Global Food Security, Queen’s University Belfast), on food fraud and authenticity issues, and the technology requirements
• Presentation by Sara Stead (Senior Strategic Collaborations Manager, Food & Environmental, Waters Corporation), on instantaneous determination of food authenticity by rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry
• Q&A session, where the audience posed questions to Prof Chris Elliot and Dr Sara Stead

About the speakers

Prof Chris Elliott
Professor of Food Safety and Director of the Institute for Global Food Security
Queen’s University Belfast

Chris is currently Professor of Food Safety and Director of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast. He has published around 300 peer review articles, many of them relating to the detection and control of agriculture, food and environmental related contaminants. His main research interests are in the development of innovative techniques to provide early warning of toxin threats across the agri- food chains. Protecting the integrity of the food supply chain from fraud is also a key research topic and Chris led the independent review of Britain’s food system following the 2013 horsemeat scandal.

Over the years Chris has developed a high level network of collaborators across Europe, the United States and Asia. He co-ordinates and participates in multiple European framework research projects. He is a founding member of the International School for Advanced Residue Analysis in Food based in France. He is also a visiting Professor at the China Agriculture University in Beijing, a recipient of a Winston Churchill Fellowship and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Society of Biology and the Institute of Food Science and Technology.

Dr. Sara Stead
Senior Strategic Collaborations Manager, Food & Environmental
Waters Corporation

Sara gained her PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of York, UK; the title of her thesis is “Development and validation of rapid screening assays for the detection of veterinary pharmaceuticals in foods of animal origin.” Sara has worked in the area of consumer safety focusing on the detection of chemical residues and environmental contaminants in food destined for human consumption for the past 15 years in both the government and private sectors.

In her current position at Waters Corporation, Sara is responsible for strategic collaboration development for the food and environment market sector. Sara has a number of research and application interests including the development of multi-residue HRMS screening methods for chemical residues and natural contaminants. Currently Sara is working on the development of innovative solutions for the detection of food fraud & authenticity using MS based techniques including REIMS with iKnife technology.

Prior to joining Waters in 2011, Sara was employed as a senior scientist at the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera, Defra, UK) for 12 years and was responsible for the development and validation of numerous methods for analysis of food and environmental samples. Sara has participated in FVO audit inspections acting as the independent laboratory expert and is a member of the EuroResidue conference scientific committee. Sara has also participated in various EU funded collaborative projects including ISOSTER, BioCop and Conffidence.

This webinar is supported by Waters

For fifty years, Waters Corp. has developed innovative analytical science solutions to support customer discoveries, operations, performance, and regulatory compliance.

Waters Corp., a publicly traded corporation (NYSE:WAT) headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts, holds worldwide leading positions in complementary analytical technologies – liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, rheometry and microcalorimetry. These markets account for approximately $5.0 billion of the estimated $20 – $25 billion worldwide analytical instrumentation market.

Specifically, the company designs, manufactures, sells and services ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), chromatography columns and chemistry products, mass spectrometry (MS) systems, thermal analysis and rheometry instruments.

Waters Corp. operates in two divisions: Waters Division and TA Instruments.

Waters Division creates business advantages for laboratory-dependent organizations by delivering practical and sustainable scientific innovation to enable significant advancement in healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality. Waters Division products are used by pharmaceutical, life science, biochemical, industrial, academic and government organizations working in research and development, quality assurance and other laboratory applications. Waters UPLC, HPLC and MS instruments and consumables are used in a broad range of industries to measure the chemical, physical and biological composition of materials. Waters Division is also headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts.

TA Instruments rheometry and microcalorimetry instruments are used primarily in predicting the suitability of polymers and viscous liquids for various industrial, consumer goods and health care products. The Company is also a developer and supplier of software based products that interface with the company’s instruments as well as other instruments manufactured by other companies. TA Instruments’ thermal analysis and rheometry instruments are used in predicting the suitability of fine chemicals and polymers for uses in various industrial, consumer goods and health care products. TA Instruments is headquartered in New Castle, Delaware.

Waters Corporation employs approximately 6,500 employees worldwide, operating in more than 100 countries.