Rice Authenticity Testing

Rice is an edible cereal grain that is produced by the grass plant (family Poaceae), Oryza sativa. The majority of the world's population, including almost all of East and Southeast Asia, depends entirely on rice as a staple food, with humans consuming 95% of the world's rice production. ⁽¹⁾

1. What is the importance of rice authenticity testing?

Rice cultivation has spread across numerous ecosystems, latitudes, and climatic conditions as a result of its extensive genetic pool. Europe is a major producer of rice, particularly in the Mediterranean nations where the predominant japonica types are grown. It is also the net importer of rice, and consumer demand in more exotic varieties, typically more expensive (such as fragrant rice), has grown over the past few decades. Due to this, there are now more potential for food fraud in the rice supply chain, which could result in the delivery of combinations containing lower-quality rice. Thus, there was a pressing need for the creation of technologies that could easily identify undesirable mixes. ^(2,3) All across the world, different rice kinds are grown and sold for consumption. The likelihood of fraud and adulteration is rising as a result of rising global rice consumption and increased reliance on rice supplied elsewhere. Globalization and a generalised problem in the food industry are to blame for this tendency. Fraud is profit-driven and typically targets the most expensive products, replacing them with lower-cost, lower-quality alternatives. However, these also turn into fraud targets when there are enormous numbers involved, as is the case for commodities like rice. ⁽⁴⁾

To safeguard the interests of stakeholders, importing nations, and quality-conscious customers, the authenticity of rice products has emerged as a major concern in the food sector from the time of crop harvest until the grain is in the hands of the consumer, rice can be adulterated accidentally or on purpose. Brown rice, polished rice, rice flour, and rice bran oil are the major varieties of rice that are vulnerable to adulteration. ⁽⁵⁾

The level of concern regarding rice fraud varies greatly by location. The main issue is typically the replacement of high-quality rice with low-quality rice, but there are other pertinent difficulties as well, such as identifying the country of origin, or specific features like low glycemic index, or other verified traits. ⁽⁵⁾

Despite the regulations, frauds are frequently committed using false labelling. The most frequent adulteration of Indian and Pakistani Basmati (high quality rice distinguished by its distinctive aroma) is due to mislabelling, which involves substituting less expensive types like non-aromatic indica long grain rice in place of the cultivars specified on the label. In 196 retail Basmati rice samples, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK discovered 63 samples that included appreciable levels of non-Basmati type rice. The employment of artificial flavouring to cover up the usage of unflavoured rice varietals is another form of adulteration. ⁽⁶⁾

2. Regulations

Standards and guidelines for rice have been set by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) (BRC, 2017). IRRI recognises over 5000 different types of rice. India, Pakistan, and Europe have all agreed on a common definition of basmati rice in order to assure accurate labelling of the grain. Both EC 1234/2007 and EC 1549/2004 are European regulations (European Commission, 2004, 2007). Regulators may need to be able to recognise and measure distinct rice kinds in complicated combinations due to issues caused by differences between and within national legislation, which is regrettable. ⁽⁷⁾

3. Testing Methods

For geographical identification, cultivar differentiation, and authenticity regarding farming practises (organic vs. conventional) of rice samples, IRMS and ICPMS offer useful information. Similar to this, spectroscopic techniques demonstrated tremendous promise for cultivar discrimination and the veracity of organic rice. Omic analysis was particularly successful in identifying adulterants from rice samples, while DNA-based approaches offer useful insights in detecting adulteration and cultivar discrimination. The most popular unsupervised approaches for multivariate analysis are PCA and HCA, which are used to visualise and break down enormous data matrices into smaller variables before data processing. Additionally, the most popular supervised techniques used to handle the data acquired from various analytical techniques for rice authentication included ANN, KNN, LDA, PLS-DA, SIMCA, and SVM. ⁽⁸⁾

4. Eurofins advantages

Authenticity analyses are "made-to-measure" for each product and include basic methods and specific tests, selected to check for likely adulteration practices.

Eurofins' specific expertise is in the use of isotopic techniques and in particular a method of reference in authentication: SNIF-NMR® (Site-Specific Natural Isotope Fractionation Studied by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance). This is one of the most powerful techniques for detecting the adulteration of natural products.

In addition, Eurofins uses a variety of traditional physical, chemical, and biological procedures, such as liquid or gas chromatography, spectroscopy (atomic absorption, ultraviolet), and a wide array of analytical tools to check the validity of the products.

Due to the fact that fraud is frequently created to circumvent the tests in use, it is getting harder and harder to identify using simple analyses. To find non-compliant items, therefore, sophisticated analytical methods must be used. With a significant investment in research and development, Eurofins can use the best techniques for each unique situation for determining the authenticity of a product.

Additionally, Eurofins provides the option of establishing a focused analytical strategy and particular data banks to assist in defending producers against imitative goods or false claims of geographic origin, particularly in the case of PDO (Protected Denomination of Origin) certification.

References

1. https://www.britannica.com/plant/rice
2. https://www.world-grain.com/articles/17642-grain-market-review-rice
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834242/
4. DNA-Based Tools to Certify Authenticity of Rice Varieties—An Overview by Maria Beatriz Vieira et,al
5. Review of methods for the detection and quantification of adulteration of rice: Basmati as a case study by Lakshmi Narayana R et,al
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224421004167
7. Rice fraud a global problem: A review of analytical tools to detect species, country of origin and adulterations by MagdalenaŚliwińska-Barte
8. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924224421004167

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