The development of isotopic and fingerprinting techniques to verify the production origin and geographical origin of food and feed

Work proposed here will address 3 issues on food authenticity (age, production method and origin). It will • further develop and validate methods for the determination of best-before date labelling and production origin for eggs.; and determine effects of seasonality and variations within year in egg and chicken production. • Expand the existing authentic reference database and parameters measured to improve the geographical mapping of eggs and chicken to confirm their geographical origin of production. • Evaluate the range of compound feed types used in the poultry industry and investigate the expected range of their isotopic signatures. • It will identify the authentic databases available and define any additional testing requirements to provide data that would be expected to improve the isotopic mapping of pork to confirm the geographical origin of production and will initiate working group of experts from Member States to develop ways to combine databases and harmonise methods for determining geographic origin through the FERA-led EU Food Integrity project.