Bia Analytical showcases food authenticity portal

Food authentication specialist Bia Analytical has launched a beta version of its cloud-based portal for verifying the integrity of herbs and spices, designed to make the process quicker and more efficient.

The Biametric Authenticator Portal – which the company says cold reduce the time taken to test a sample from days to minutes – is the product of an alliance with tech company Storm Reply and will be put through its paces during the beta test in collaboration with Reading Scientific Services.

The portal uses chemometrics, AI-powered modelling and spectroscopy, drawing on Bia Analytical's portable NIR spectroscopy-based authentication service last year in alliance with Germany's trinamiX, according to an article on the company's website. It "gives you the power to verify the authenticity of herbs and spices in your laboratory without manual spectrograph analysis," according to the company.

A 2021 study by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) estimated that approximately 17 per cent of all herbs and spices that are put on sale in the EU may be fraudulent, with oregano, pepper, cumin, turmeric and saffron. Research suggests that adulterated herbs and spices can contain harmful substances like pesticides.