Report advises two-tier approach to spot sunflower oil fraud

Contamination and adulteration of vegetable oils is a widespread problem and could be responsible for more deaths than any other form of food fraud.

That's one of the conclusions of a just-published scientific paper in Trends in Food Science & Technology, which describes a two-tier approach for testing the authenticity of sunflower oil, one of the most commonly consumed oils worldwide and one that is particularly prone to adulteration.

The global vegetable oil market is valued at $105.6bn, with sunflower seed oil ranking fourth in consumption, but recent supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and regional conflicts have left the supply chain "vulnerable to fraudulent practices such as adulteration with cheaper oils and mineral oils," according to the authors of the review.

That's important, as oils used to adulterate sunflower oil can contain contaminants like mycotoxins, pesticides, antimicrobials and other potentially harmful substances that pose a risk to human health.

The paper lists dozens of incidents of fraud and contamination in sunflower oil and other vegetable oils in the last couple of decades involving adulteration or contamination, unapproved enhancements such as the use of dyes, mislabelling of origin or organic status or to evade tariffs, and counterfeiting if intellectual property rights.

Latterly, global crises such as Russia's aggression in Ukraine – which is the number one supplier of sunflower oil worldwide – have led to a surge in prices and provided an incentive for fraudsters to deliberately adulterate supplies for sale in an undersupplied market.

The paper – written by researchers at Queen's University Belfast and other academic institutions in India, Thailand and Iraq – recommends Raman spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics for tier one screening, and tier two a chromatographic technique backed up by mass spectrometry to authenticate suspect samples identified in tier 1 screening.

"Throughout history, adulterated [vegetable oils] have proven to be the most fatal food item, with more severe and long-lasting health consequences than any other recorded form of food fraud," they write.

Current global crises have led to shortages and increased production costs, hiking prices, which "presents a significant threat and vulnerability against [economically-motivated adulteration], posing a real danger to public health and sustainability development."

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