This scandal is creating a significant opportunity for the specialist food testing sector, as stricter testing regimes are being introduced, and new regulations may well follow. There is room for improvement among the current DNA testing technologies, which allow determination of different food sources, the most widely used of which is Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). This technology can check the presence of predefined species, but cannot identify any unexpected breed. Other techniques are being developed that are capable of wider signature characterization, for example,  Sagentia is working with Pathogenetix to develop an analyzer that can, in a single test, enable the identification of a very wide range of DNA. The equipment is targeted at determining which particular strain of pathogen (e.g. E.coli, Staphylococcus, etc), so that the source can be traced, but adapting the test to identify whether food contains horse, beef or pork, for example, is a simple matter.

Other technologies are being developed such as light emission-based raman spectroscopy, along with cheaper testing kits which could be in demand as some retailers may well decide to undertake product testing for themselves. These tests won’t allow us to know if food comes from a horse or a cow, but they will give us confidence that it is not tainted by bute or if there is melamine in our milk, or whether our cooking oil hasn’t been diluted with some potentially dangerous nut oil. There is also demand for portable analytical equipment to enable easier testing at numerous points in the supply chain. Why do I feel that it is probably not too much to expect that a smartphone app will also emerge before too long?