10
June 2016

LGC announces release of a new goat reference material LGC7226

In order to continue to help protect consumers from food fraud LGC, the UK’s Designated Measurement Institute for chemical and bio-measurement, has produced a new goat reference material (RM), LGC7226.
 
The production of this new RM was supported under the UK National Measurement System and is accredited to ISO Guide 34.
 
Meat fraud is still an ongoing issue in this country, despite the horse meat scandal of 2013, and these materials support the need for food reference materials identified in the Elliott Review into the integrity and assurance of food supply network. In 2015, a company in Wales pleaded guilty to mislabelling goat carcasses as sheep and a survey commissioned by the Food Standards Agency determined that 1 in 5 lamb takeaways were found to contain undeclared cheaper meats.
 
As Liam Gormley, Food and Environment Product Manager for LGC’s Standards division, explains, “Fraud remains particularly prevalent for expensive meats such as lamb which are still being substituted in the supply chain with much cheaper options, such as goat. This new RM expands on our current suite of single and mixed meat species reference materials. and will help laboratories develop and validate methods to identify the true species present in meat samples and to ensure that consumers are not duped or cheated.”
 
The goat RM was analysed using three different approaches – DNA sequencing, a PCR based method and an immunoassay method – to confirm the expected meat species in the samples and the absence of possible species cross-contamination. The limit of detection is below 1% of one meat species in the presence of another.
 
LGC also provides proficiency testing schemes for meat and fish authenticity, which complement the range of reference materials. In this way, laboratories are able to validate the analytical method using reference materials, and then demonstrate their ability to detect contamination in blind testing through the PT scheme.
 
Click here for details of the meat and fish proficiency scheme.
 
LGC7226 is available from LGC Standards. For further information on this or our other materials please visit us here