Recent food scares have increased consumer awareness on all aspects of food
quality. Consumers have developed preferences with respect to agricultural
practices and geographical origin. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform
promotes production systems that support environmentally friendly and high
quality products. The Commission has recently adopted a European Action Plan
for organic food and farming, which contains proposals for future initiatives
aimed to enhance the development of this sector.
Research is still needed in this field, for instance to clarify the
relationships between agricultural management and nutritional quality and food
safety. Many claims on labels that relate to the expected/anticipated added
value are rarely supported by analytical data, leaving regulators to rely
solely on paper auditing procedures when monitoring compliance.
IRMM is investigating the potential of a number of analytical methods for
distinguishing between organic and conventional foodstuffs. Methods like gene
and protein expression profiling, based on the regulation of some genes by
nitrate-mediated signalling are being investigated. The possibility of using
high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for antioxidant determination,
and radionuclide and stable isotope measurements to authenticate organic food
is also being explored. While carrying out this work, IRMM has compiled
scientific information about production and analysis of organic foods and
reviewed the analytical methods available for comparing organic and
conventional food products.
Read about the TRACE project.
Theinternationalworkshop on
organic food authentication was held 30 Nov-1 Dec 2009
Read on
M. Szulc, A. Maquet. Extraction protocol for winter wheat whole grain proteins
compatible with two-dimensional fluorescence difference gel electrophoresis
(2D DIGE). Cereal Chemistry 86 (2009) 692-694