Fats & Edible oils

Provenance is a crucial price determining factor for olive oils and other high-quality oils. It is an indicator of quality and reputation. Verifying the country of origin of the famous olive oil producing regions is of high interest to stakeholders in order to secure supply chain and keep customer trust.

• Verify country of origin: Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Tunisia
• Verify PDO and regional provenance: Terra di Bari, Apulia, Tuscany, Sicily, Kalamata, Chania, Siteia, Rethymno, Chalkidiki, Andalusia, Catalonia, and many others

The stable isotope ratios in terrestrial plants are influenced by climatic conditions. Therefore, in the case of olive oil (and other terrestrial vegetable oils), conclusions can be drawn from these parameters about the climatic conditions and thus about the geographical origin.

With a strong and robust dataset, an unprecedented discrimination of different origins is possible. With our approach we evaluate the isotope ratios of C, H, O and a full NIR spectrum in one fingerprint.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) is a premium product much more expensive than other olive oils. Therefore they are very vulnerable to fraudulent activity. Nevertheless purity testing via NMR also applicable to other vegetable oils, such as sunflower or rapeseed oil.

Via IRMS and the combination with NMR and/or NIR, metadata (geographical origin, vintage) of the samples and information obtained from the isotopic signature of the individual fatty acids or the minor components in the oil all can be combined to keep the acceptance range of the results narrow and thus detect minor pattern shifts. With this approach, fraud can be detected simply based on a deviation from the established patterns. The deviation can be traced back to many parameters, for example a changed ratio between triglycerides and free fatty acids (typical for admixtures of industrially extracted olive oil to virgin olive oil).

For oils it can be very helpful to do batch comparisons, since many times the product is a blend and the user would like to control qualities between the mother lot and the subsequent sub-lots. If there might be an unknown factor of differentiation untargeted fingerprinting of the products with one or more analytical methods of our portfolio can be applied in order to identify differences and provide useful information for further investigation of such inconsistencies.

Isotope analysis plays a decisive role when it comes to traceability of batches in the areas of production, import and export. With retained samples, the identity of products can be verified independently of documents – a control sample is directly compared with an original reference sample, providing strong evidence of authenticity.

Popularity of fish oil is growing as an exclusive source for essential fatty acids associated with special health benefitting properties.

Stable isotope patterns of fish oils are mainly influenced by the diet of the animals. Different fish species from different regions have different isotopic signatures due to their different diets. The type of feeding in fish farms alters the fatty acid composition and isotopic signature of individual fatty acids. Industrial processing can also affect fatty acid composition and isotopic signature. The addition of non-natural fatty acids for the purpose of enrichment can also be detected via the isotopic signature.

Stable isotope analysis, component specific isotope analysis for H and C of the fatty acids and minor components as well as NIR and a combination of these methods can be used to obtain patterns and profiles for the authenticity assurance of the products.