What’s taken away in your takeaway
The substitution of lamb for cheaper meats was raised as a concern in April last year when a Which? Survey found 40% of sampled lamb takeaways (principally kebabs) in London and Birmingham contained undeclared meats. The Food Standards Agency’s own UK-wide investigation soon afterwards sampled 307 lamb takeaway dishes (curries and kebabs) and found 21% were non-compliant for meat species declarations; of these 35% were below the 1% EU Action limit and were considered to be due to poor handling practices during preparation rather than adulteration. Beef, chicken, turkey and pork were detected in non-compliant samples. Local authorities (co-ordinated under the new Food Crime Unit) have investigated all these cases and taken appropriate action, including a number of prosecutions, which mean that operators face fines of up to £5,000. European Regulation 178/2002 defines the responsibility of businesses with regard to preventing food fraud, ensuring that they describe foods accurately and don’t mislead the consumer. Analytically, such investigations mainly use methods based on ELISA and PCR techniques to confirm the accuracy of labels. Though each has its own performance parameters, ensuring consistency between such techniques is made easier with the recent introduction by LGC of new reference materials of meat mixtures prepared under ISO Guide 34. There are now six new mixtures of beef, chicken or turkey in sheep meat. Bio-Check recommends the use of such materials when validating a laboratory’s chosen analytical method. Contact us to discuss your method validation