Substitution found in turkey product testing

22-Dec-2015 - Last updated on 22-Dec-2015 at 09:57 GMT

A total of 50% of Americans eat turkey at Christmas

Chicken, beef and pork substitution were found in 7% of turkey products, according to an analysis by Clear Food.

The most likely culprit was chicken added (in eight out of 11 substitutions), pork substitution in two out of 11 cases and beef in one case.

It also found 5.5% of samples had hygienic issues, including traces of human DNA.

The report about turkey quality in supermarkets is based on genomic analysis of 170 samples (158 of those being turkey products) from 41 different brands from June to November this year.

Of the 158 individual samples tested across different turkey products including lunch meat and turkey sausages, there was an overall error rate of 13.5%.

Turkey sausages and turkey dogs contained missing ingredients, substitutions and hygienic issues.

Clear Food is the consumer initiative of the analytics company, Clear Labs.

Pork and beef substitution

Mahni Ghorashi, co-founder of Clear Labs, said one of the things it saw more often that it would like is pork or beef substitution in products that don’t claim to have pork on the labels.

“Pork and beef are both particularly unwelcome substitutions in any food when you consider that significant numbers of people do not eat these meats for religious reasons. We found three cases of pork or beef substitution out of 158 turkey samples we took,” he told FoodQualityNews.

“That said, I would say that our reports are finding that the food system is in general good and getting better. There are always outliers (we found an item marketed as a turkey product that contained no turkey), but the majority of the problems we’ve found to date do not signify gross negligence or malice.

“That’s hopeful, in our perspective, because it means that the food industry will be receptive to new technologies that help it become more transparent and can fix any of the problems that do crop up in our massively complicated food system.”

The only consistent issue with 12 whole turkeys tested was that the nutritional information (calories, fat, carbohydrates, and protein) reported on their labels did not match what was seen in tests.

Turkeys tested contained more calories and fat than reported on their labels. On average, they contained 54 more calories per 100g than reported on the label and 5.5 more grams of fat per 100 grams than reported.

The top 10 turkey brands (see full report here) were Primo Taglio, New Hope Provisions and Eating Right and the top three retailers were Target, Safeway and Walmart.

More transparent system

Ghorashi said feedback overall has been very positive since the first report on hot dogs.

“Consumers and industry alike are ready for a more transparent food system and our reports are one of the first steps in the right direction,” he said.

“We’re working cooperatively with all relevant government bodies. Our technology helps manufacturers, retailers and government agencies move towards a more proactive model of testing rather than a reactive model, which is one of the core drivers of the Food Safety and Modernization Act.”

The firm hopes to expand testing capabilities outside of the US but for now it is only sourcing products from the domestic food market.

Clear Food said it is holding firm on the policy not to highlight the worst-performing brands as it wants to reward the ‘good guys’ and does not see itself as a whistleblower.

Data so far

Ghorashi said in internal tests so far it has found about a 10-15% rate of discrepancy between labeled ingredients and actual ingredients.

“This means that we’ve found something in the food item that doesn’t align with the label, whether that’s a missing ingredient, trace allergen, inaccurate nutritional information, or unexpected ingredient,” he said.

“It was clear to us that there’s a lot of room (and demand) for improvement in the industry, which is why we started Clear Food – to encourage higher standards and greater transparency throughout industry.”

Clear Labs' proprietary next-generation genomic sequencing workflow is used to assign a significant weight to DNA-based data, factoring in DNA degradation and signal parameters (some ingredients might not have DNA or their DNA might have degraded).

It screens for major, medium, minor and trace substitution, and deduct points on the substitution axis, attempting to capture all ingredients within a sample, but certain foods might not be homogenous (in this case results might not capture the entirety of the product).

It perform the next-generation genomic analysis in-house but for other tests such as nutrition data and pathogens it partners with third party labs.

Clear Food fell short of its $100,000 goal on Kickstarter in November. However, it is planning to self-fund at least three reports next year, but Ghorashi said he couldn’t reveal what categories they would be.

“[We’re] not deterred because we really think we’re just getting started. We feel strongly that publishing our reports will help drive the food industry towards a higher standard,” he said.

“I can’t talk about the categories that we’ll be testing just yet, but I can say that I think they’re going to be some of our most interesting reports yet. You can expect to see the first one in early Q1.”