“This isn’t sausage anymore, it’s scrambled eggs.” How meat products are falsified DNA testing expert Minaev told how they are looking for forgery in meat 28.02.2023, 08:09

– Your laboratory is engaged in the identification of foreign DNA in food. You research different products, you have patented and proprietary testing systems to detect contamination and tampering. What exactly do experts understand by falsification of products?

– Often, by falsification we understand the partial substitution of a more expensive product for a cheaper one. For example, when honey from sunflower fields is added to expensive buckwheat honey. Or add cow’s milk to goat’s milk. When turkey sausage contains only 20% turkey meat. But there is also a complete substitute: for example, when there is no rabbit in rabbit meat sausages. Expensive meat is being replaced by cheap chicken and pork.

– Which product groups are most likely to experience counterfeiting?

– The falsification is typical of the entire food industry: it is milk, meat, honey and canned food – anything that is profitable to falsify.

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Mikhail Minaev

Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution of the Federal Scientific Center for Food Systems. VM Gorbatov RAS

– And if on the package it says “made according to GOST”?

“This is a serious claim that the product will not be tampered with because the composition of such products is known and can be easily checked using certified and standardized methods. But such goods appear less and less on our shelves, because our GOSTs are optional, they cannot be fulfilled.

— How does forgery occur in production? Is the technician tasked with reducing the price of the product?

– Of course, no one would say to a technologist “Break the law”. This is always done underground. A large organization will never engage in targeted falsification because it is a disgrace. In addition, the entire turnover of raw materials of animal origin is monitored by the Federal State Information System “Mercury”. Basically, small businesses falsify products – it’s very difficult to keep track of what they’re buying and where they’re spending it.

In addition, there are “opportunity areas” that can also be used in the legislation. For example, you cannot specify types of animal protein. For example, the manufacturer writes that the product contains beef and animal protein. This is a collagen protein obtained from pig skin. You can write on the packaging that this product is not made according to GOST, but according to TU (technical specifications), that is, according to its own recipe.

If a business does something to specifications, it is very difficult to make a claim as the formulation of that product is not known in advance.

But if an enterprise wants to produce products that comply with GOST, it must comply with its requirements.

– It turned out to be unprofitable for the enterprise to follow GOST?

– Economically unprofitable. Therefore, in stores there are less and less products created in accordance with GOST.

Was this last year?

– I think this trend has continued for the last five years.

– If a manufacturer produces sausages according to his own recipe, how can he save on materials?

– According to the TU, the sausage can be stuffed with any inexpensive ingredient. Write on the label: “Poultry: turkey, chicken.” If the buyer reads “Turkey, chicken” – it seems to him that there are many turkeys, since the turkey is in the first place. But in fact, there may be 90% of chicken and 10% of turkey.

– Do you think that the number of products produced according to specifications will increase in the coming years?

– Probably yes. Enterprises produce GOST products mainly to strengthen their brand: “We are Enterprise X, we produce Doctor’s sausage and it is really tasty.” People try, they like it, and there is trust in the manufacturer. After all, if a manufacturer knows how to make good “Doctor” sausage, then at least other products in a similar valuable segment are worthy of him.

— How does product tampering usually occur within the business?

– Differently. There is a primitive falsification: a disposable LLC is taken, which does something for the same incomprehensible shop in the basement. They say the sausage is made from beef and 90% chicken. This is deliberate falsification, we have identified such cases. From the end: investigated the cuts obtained from dried reindeer meat. We look and there is no reindeer smell, as a class!

– Venison began to be sold in canned food. Are there deer in there?

– In most cases there are no deer there. So is boar meat. Try to separate the meat of wild boar from the meat of an ordinary pig. This is a marketing ploy, and the meat in these cans is boiled in autoclaves, which is almost impossible to taste.

– Are there other instances where the label does not exactly match what is on the product?

– There are many examples. We once started developing test systems to identify fish species together with the National Center for Fisheries and Aquaculture Safety. He controlled the purchase of cod fillets in large chain stores. No code found in any of the packages. Pollock, haddock – everything but cod. There is no control method, so you can be a hooligan.

After the information about the introduction of methods for determining the composition passed, the manufacturer realized that now he will be fined. And he began to falsify the product in a different way. Inside is a large package, for example, five pieces of fish fillet. They put one cod fillet, four pollock. You cannot distinguish them from the outside. It will show the presence of a qualitative reaction (yes/no) in the cod DNA.

– And what is put in the sausage?

– In sausage it is allowed to use chicken melange, which is an egg semi-finished product. An unscrupulous manufacturer stated that when chicken DNA was found in their products, it was not chicken, but chicken eggs or melange. Only a quantitative technique can distinguish what is put in the product – undeclared chicken meat or permitted melange.

Having approved this method, we conducted a study of sausages produced according to GOSTs, and in one of them we found more than 20% chicken meat. The producer sang a famous song about the added melange, but 20% melange is no longer sausage, it’s scrambled eggs! We now have quantitative methods that give a clear idea of ​​what is added and how much.

– Are meat products mainly falsified with chicken?

– Yes. That’s why we developed and registered a test system that allows you to detect chicken. This is a qualitative and quantitative test.

– You found him with DNA?

– Yes. Given the availability of a standard sample, we recalculate this for the entire product. So, we say, for example, that we found 2% of the chicken meat content in the ground pork. This opportunity is given by the standard sample we made and registered.

— Was it difficult to record a reference material?

— Yes, it was difficult, because for a long time there was no concept of matrix standard sample in the Russian metrological system.

— What does it represent?

— It is specially prepared, well homogenized, dried and standardized ground meat.

– Wasn’t there a model like this before?

— There was no sample of matrix standard food products. For example, in the mining industry, various ores, rocks, etc. matrix samples have been developed, but not in the food industry.

– There were no counterfeit products in the USSR?

– It was quite difficult to falsify anything in the USSR. But, of course, they falsified it, but they handled it differently. There was an OBKhSS, if someone was suspected of fraud, all documents were confiscated, what and how much was bought, where deleted. Control methods were a helpful element. Now this is not possible.

— What is a standardized sample of chicken meat?

All chickens have segments of DNA containing the same sequences. Likewise in humans: there is a part of the DNA that is characteristic in principle for all humans, but there are also parts in which it is possible to identify a single person. We found such a universal piece of chicken DNA and made a standard sample with the same species-specific DNA content in the matrix composition of the minced meat.

– So, have you laid the foundation for a collection of such examples?

– Yes. We will gradually make all kinds of meat. We are now working on a pig.

What is the easiest thing to falsify in meat products?

– Minced meat, meatballs, sausage products. Anything that has been crushed in some way. Another thing is if you buy a chilled carcass or cut. You can easily distinguish the turkey carcass from the chicken carcass. Pork cut from beef. The maximum that can be done with them is to pump them.

– How? This?

– Water containing various food additives that increase the water holding capacity of meat. But then it will drain from you or shrink one and a half times when you put it in the oven.

– Can you determine in your laboratory how many times or for how long meat has been frozen?

– Yes it is possible. This can be seen in the structure of the meat fibers. It is necessary to take a histological section of the fibers and compare it with the reference image in the atlas.

– Are freezing times often violated?

– NO. After all, you can develop another product at the expiration date, and from this product – the next.