Identification of geographical origin (authentication of origin)

In recent years, European consumers have shown a great deal of concern to know the traceability of food products, owing mainly to concerns about the safety of food following the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease or bird flu. However, this concern for traceability goes beyond safety and has spread to other issues related with food quality.

In this scenario, it is becoming increasingly important to differentiate the origin of raw material as part of essential quality controls. In the case of dairy and meat products, the prestige of the most sought-after products is often based on the use of raw material from a specific species or breed, which is usually associated with traditional methods of preparation.

At AZTI-Tecnalia, we offer you the most up-to-date systems of product origin verification and validation. We use DNA analysis techniques to identify species in multiple meat, fish, dairy and fruit products, which have replaced immunological or electrophoretic protein analysis techniques given the relative stability of the DNA molecule. The analytical verification of breed is a more complex problem than species identification, but thanks to powerful DNA analysis techniques, we can obtain different genetic markers to verify the genetic origin of live animals and manufactured products.

The main advantages of these techniques are:

• Robustness: applicable to fresh, desiccated, salted, smoked, cooked products, etc.
• Accuracy: high resolution capacity.
• Easily adapted to new species or breeds.
• Capacity to incorporate new techniques that emerge from genome research.