US studies reveal mince contamination and mislabelling

In two separate studies just published, researchers from California’s Chapman University Food Science Program found 20% of consumer mince products contained meat from other species, including horsemeat. A separate study found nearly 50% of game meat products analysed were mislabelled. In the study on identification of species found in minced meat products, 48 samples were analysed and 10 were found to be mislabelled. Of those 10, nine were found to have additional meat species and one sample was mislabelled in its entirety. Additionally, horsemeat, which is illegal to sell in the USA, was detected in two of the samples. “Although extensive meat species testing has been carried out in Europe in light of the 2013 horsemeat scandal, there has been limited research carried out on this topic in the US,” said Rosalee Hellberg, assistant professor at Chapman University and co-author on both studies . “To our knowledge, the most recent US meat survey was published in 1995.” Ground meat products A total of 48 fresh and frozen ground meat products representing a variety of species were collected for the research and tested using a combination of DNA bar coding and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The study speculates the mislabelling could be a result of unintentional cross-contamination at the processing plant, as a result of poor cleaning procedures. Another possibility raised in the study was that lower-cost species were being intentionally mixed in with higher-cost species to make more money. Overall, mislabelling was found to be most common in products purchased from online speciality meat distributors (versus supermarkets), which showed a 35% of mislabelling and included products labelled as black bear and yak burgers. Game The second study, focusing on game meat species labelling, used a total of 54 game meat products collected from online retailers. Of these 54 samples, a total of 22 different types of game meat were represented based on the product label. Like the previous study, the samples were tested using DNA bar coding. Game meats represent an important speciality market in the US with an estimate value of $39bn. Both studies were published in the journal Food Control .

US studies reveal mince contamination and mislabelling

Two years after the UK meat industry was rocked by the discovery of horsemeat in dozens of beef products, a new study in the US has discovered the widespread contamination of meat with other species, including horsemeat.

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