A future approach for the supply chain

A CONSENSUS among my peers at SCIEX is that 2015 has been a year of challenges and opportunities for the global food industry, particularly the food safety testing market. In Asia, home to about 4.3 billion people¹, food safety issues are even more magnified. There is a swelling demand for food supply resulting in increased reliance on affordable food imports from global sources. On the supply side, Asia, as a major food producer and exporter, also contends with pressures of commercial production, sanitation and hygiene practices associated with exploding population, as well as accidental adulteration, and intentional adulteration for profits. Recent regulatory changes have also brought about additional business pressures for the food producers and manufacturers as new requirements on manufacturing, distribution and promotion of food have been redefined and introduced. Implications brought about by said policy changes include increased costs for sourcing and operations.  Additionally, manufacturers are increasingly challenged to have immediate access to information on emerging contaminates.

The food safety landscape

We continue to see a combination of recurring issues and new challenges in the food safety testing market. The traditionally tested chemical contaminants such as pesticides and veterinary drug residues continue to be the largest group of tested compounds in food in Asia and elsewhere. Meat fraud and adulteration cases were on the rise causing heightened health, ethical and religious concerns, especially in a region home to large Muslim and Jewish populations with special halal and kosher diets. Contamination of milk, a high-value export product of Australia and New Zealand, resurfaced in 2014 and was branded an act of eco-terrorism.  For us, practitioners in the field of analytical chemistry and mass spectrometry, we continued to closely track food safety issues, find ways to refine and develop new methods, and enhance the use of instruments to detect contaminants with more speed and accuracy.

The regulators’ response

China/Taiwan          
In China, the amended Food Safety Law has been enacted by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), effective 1 October 2015. The amended ruling pays special attention to infant formula and food for medicinal purposes, requiring clear-cut documentation on raw materials, additives, nutritional value and manufacturing techniques. It also stipulates that the labels and menus of health food shall not include disease prevention or treatment function claims. An inventory of approved Health Food Raw Material will be prepared and published by CFDA.  After the publication of the inventory, the raw material that is not listed, or newly imported health food, will need to be registered with CFDA.

The implications of the revised law include heftier fines, revocation of certificates and even imprisonment for food producers.  Fines are now up to 30 times the value of the products, a three-fold increase from the previous limit of 10 times the value. Those who use inedible or restricted substances to food could also be punished and put behind bars without court proceedings for up to 15 days.

Taiwan also reorganized its Food and Drug Administration to enhance quality control over its imported food products. According to Taiwan’s International Life Sciences Institute, there are more than 20,000 food businesses and food factories operating within the country, and their registration has been made compulsory since 10 December 2015. Constituents of food additives also need to be registered with the government. New regulations under its Food Safety Act will require good hygiene practices and accredited certification programs – particularly for the cooking oil industry, which faced fraud in 2014 – in food, safety and sanitation. Food safety control systems have also been implemented for fish, meat and dairy products, and boxed meals. Ingredient lists on food labels are also required.

ASEAN

In the ASEAN region, the ASEAN Food and Beverage Alliance (AFBA) was set up in 2013. In this role, the alliance aimed to standardize certification procedures for ingredients, impose contamination limits and nutrition labelling. This alliance comprises the main F&B associations from 10 ASEAN countries. The AFBA has united the food industry across the region, including SMEs with its network of national industry associations.

The AFBA was formed in conjunction with the ASEAN Economic Community, which aims among other things to harmonize food safety policies and regulation through partnerships, dialogues and technical capacity-building.

The ASEAN F&B sector is on the brink of exponential growth over the next few years. By streamlining and standardizing the process of food production, ASEAN as a whole will benefit from being a single economic community.

Australia/New Zealand

Thanks to a treaty in 2002², Australia and New Zealand have had joint food standards. With that in mind, New Zealand’s Food Act will take effect in March 2016. Under the new Act, the Minister of Primary Industries (MPI) or the Ministry of Food Safety have the power to direct a food recall, where previously, such powers were only invested in the latter.  The two countries are known for being very strict with agricultural products brought in from overseas — food is screened very carefully, from commercial airlines to cargo ships, to prevent either contamination of the local wild life or introduction of diseases that the local wildlife has no resistance to, and may thus sustain a severe drop in population.

What food manufacturers and food testing labs should consider

In the light of these cases, there is increasing pressure on food supply chain practitioners to ensure the quality and authenticity of their products, on the back of scandals and scares which are becoming increasingly hard to detect. Mass spectrometry offers a solution that is both fast and accurate, as well as one that does not require large sample sizes and can be used to detect a multitude of adulterants.

Food testing laboratories are now finding new approaches to test meat products for authenticity and adulteration to identify exactly what species are present. While other food testing methods address the DNA and single protein identification, the LC-MS/MS solutions provide a comprehensive approach to meat speciation, using the protein markers in the meat sample to confirm the species with high accuracy. Reliable results ensure exactly what type of meat you are buying, selling and eating.

With the introduction of high-resolution MS technology, complex hardware, lack of robustness and insufficient software that once made operation challenging, while delivering ambiguous results can be overcome. Mass Spectrometry platforms specifically designed to run key customer workflows in routine testing labs are now much simpler, easier to maintain and intuitive. They provide sensitivity combined with high speed MS/MS data acquisition to enhance quality of data and ensure comprehensive detection of unknowns and enhanced mass accuracy to deliver improved selectivity for routine MS quantitation of targeted compounds, all the while drawing from comprehensive high resolution MS/MS libraries to enable more reliable and accurate identification of unknowns.

Conclusion   

2016 promises to be another year of challenges and milestones where food safety is concerned. A strong collaboration among the food industry, regulators and the scientific community will be critical in addressing recurring food safety issues as well as emerging threats.

More labs are going into pre-emptive surveillance screening to explore possible adulterants or contaminants outside of their routine targeted compounds. This remains a hurdle for many labs that have already jumped on the bandwagon because of the limited computational power they have. General unknown screening currently just hasn't achieved a state of routine. But the game is changing to favor solutions that deliver end-to-end results with ease. This involves balanced-specification hardware in tandem with streamlined data processing/reviewing software that can perform targeted/non-targeted quantitative/qualitative analysis in the shortest time possible.

References:

¹http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/trends/Concise%252520Report%252520on%252520the%252520World%252520Population%252520Situation%2525202014/en.pdf

²http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/2002/13.html

*Jason Neo, Director, Field Applications, Rest of Asia, SCIEX,  has over a decade of experience in life science applications. In his current role, he oversees SCIEX market development and field applications operations in the Rest of Asia region.  SCIEX defines “Rest of Asia” as ASEAN, Australia/New Zealand, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong