Test for fast detection of horse meat

Scientists at the Institute of Food Research have teamed up with Oxford Instruments to develop a fast, cheap alternative to DNA testing as a means of distinguishing horse meat from beef.

Because horses and cattle have different digestive systems, the fat components of the two meats have different fatty acid compositions. The new method looks at differences in the chemical composition of the fat in the meats, using similar technology to a hospital MRI scanner.

In just 10 minutes, a technician can determine whether a piece of raw meat is horse or beef. The method has recently been trialled in an industrial setting by a leading meat processor and is currently being extended by the team of scientists to test for other meat species, including pork and lamb.

The new method, which has been reported in the journal Food Chemistry, was developed in response to the horse meat scandal of 2013, when discovery of horse meat in a number of beef burgers and other meat products led to millions of pounds worth of food being taken off supermarket shelves in the UK.

The crisis highlighted gaps in testing, as the existing method relies on DNA, which can tell one meat from another based on the genetic make-up of the source animals, but is relatively slow and expensive and prone to contamination if not used carefully.

The new method uses Pulsar technology, a high resolution benchtop NMR spectrometer developed by Oxford Instruments. NMR spectroscopy is a well-respected analytical technique used in chemistry labs worldwide. However, conventional instruments are large and expensive, and rely on super-cooled magnets and highly trained personnel to run them. Pulsar, in contrast, is based on permanent magnets and ease of operation.

The research team knew that for a test to be useful as a screening tool, it needs to be both quick and cheap. With this goal in mind, they discovered that a couple of minutes shaking about a gram of meat in a solvent followed by a few minutes of data acquisition on Pulsar was enough to tell horse meat from beef. Software to carry out mathematical analysis of the spectral data has also been developed.

“It’s a stroke of luck really that some of the most important meats turn out to have fat signatures that we can tell apart so easily with this method,” says Dr Kate Kemsley, head of the scientific support unit at IFR. “It’s been very satisfying to see results from a real industrial setting sit right on top of those we generated in our two labs. We think this testing method should work well at key points in the supply chain, say at meat wholesalers and processors.”