Adulteration and the Challenge for Enforcement Scientists

In the UK we have beaten food adulteration. There is an army of enforcement officers: Trading Standards, Environmental Health and Public Analysts who, amongst other things, fight the fight against food adulteration. In 2007, in an attempt to improve efficiency amongst these local authority staff, the government commissioned a review of the 60 policy areas worked on by enforcement officers including food hygiene and adulteration (composition), led by Peter Rogers, chief executive of Westminster City Council. It concluded that adulteration of food (measured by checking its composition) was not in the top five 'priority areas' in terms of risk and effective use of the resource provided by enforcement officers. Consequently, some local authorities now argue that food composition is no longer a priority, leading to it receiving scant attention. Food adulteration has been beaten, or at least you would be forgiven for thinking so.

The problem is that adulteration is difficult to define and means different things to different people. Adulteration was defined by Dr Henry Letheby, 1816–76, as 'the act of debasing a pure or genuine commodity for pecuniary profit, by adding to it an inferior or spurious article, or by taking from it one or more of its constituents'. To some, (Caroline Walker, the distinguished nutritionalist, writer and campaigner and others), this includes additives such as emulsifiers, synthetic flavourings and colours, which are added to make a food more desirable. Dr Henry Letheby's definition would seem, at least at first glance, to support her opinion. However, additives such as antioxidants (added to foods that contain fats to stop them going rancid), colours, emulsifiers, stabilisers, gelling agents and thickeners, flavourings, preservatives and sweeteners are permitted in foods and controlled by food law; in the eyes of the law, they are not adulterants. If they were classed as adulterants then synthetic foods, such as an instant strawberry dessert that has never been near a strawberry (or any other fruit) or in fact anything containing additives, i.e. ready meals, sweets, snacks and numerous other products would be considered adulterated, leaving the public with much less choice and eating only the most 'natural' ingredients (those grown or raised).

The Public Analyst's role is to help the courts decide what is adulterated and what is not; and, yes, the meaning of those words does change as research provides more evidence. For example, Azo-dyes (in some food colours) once permitted are now considered harmful and have more recently been banned. Also Sudan dyes; colourants used in oil solvents and polishes, which were the subject of an emergency order in the EU in July 2003, were found in chilli powder imported from India in 2005 and subsequently added to many foods including pizzas, sauces and ready meals. Sudan dyes are now considered carcinogenic (an agent that promotes cancer), at least if present in sufficient quantities. Another example is the 'Southampton Six':