Validating premium product claims in Australian food and wine

Australian fresh produce and value-added goods have an enviable reputation worldwide for being clean and green. Despite the country’s relatively small international output, Australian food and beverage products command premium prices due to these assurances. To harness the full potential of the Australian agrifood sector in high-value export markets and meet the demands of today’s discerning consumers, producers must provide tangible proof of their products’ safety, sustainability, and high quality.

The four-year, $1.6 million-dollar ‘Analytical assessment of food quality and processing systems, tracing, biochemistry and nutritional properties of foods’ (‘ANPC Analytics’) project aimed to provide such validation. The project aims to develop cost-effective, user-friendly methods to scientifically verify the provenance, ‘free-from’ status, nutritional content, health benefits, safety, and sustainability credentials of various Australian food and beverages, thereby helping producers of these products access lucrative markets for premium fresh produce and value-added goods.

Future Food Systems research partner Murdoch University’s Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC) is spearheading this initiative. ANPC, equipped with Bruker scientific instruments capable of generating molecular-level ‘chemical fingerprints,’ teamed up with Bruker, making it the perfect industry partner. The project also garnered support from the WA Department of Primary Industry and Regional Development (DPIRD), which was eager to enhance the value of the state’s agrifood sector and boost export market penetration.

“The department is linking industry with the [research team] by identifying priority farming systems and agricultural products for ANPC analysis that have the potential to create a competitive advantage and [bring] benefits to WA’s primary industries,” DPIRD’s Rohan Prince explains.

Since spring 2021, the team—including Professors Jeremy Nicholson and Elaine Holmes, Dr. Ruey Leng Loo, PhD scholar Charlotte Rowley, postgraduate students, and technicians—has been using Bruker’s nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) FoodScreener™ system to generate unique ‘chemical fingerprints’ of WA produce, such as eggs, olive oil, wine, and apples.

L-R: Prof. Elaine Holmes, Prof. Jeremy Nicholson and Dr Ruey-Leng Loo. Credit: Murdoch University

“By linking the detailed chemical fingerprints of premium food products … with biofunctionality, this project can develop scientific evidence to support value-added health claims for Australian food producers while leveraging quantitative nutritional information to support metabolic healthcare decisions,” explains Dr Iris Mangelschots, President of Bruker Biospin’s Applied, Industrial & Clinical division. “In addition, these biofunctional health claims will be validated at the ANPC by using Bruker’s IVDr Clinical NMR Research Platform. The high-throughput NMR method provides a wealth of information that [ranges] … from the detailed chemical composition of the food to the geographical origin and identification of any form of adulteration.”

Each ‘fingerprint’ provides detailed information about a food, beverage, or food-based product, verifying its chemical composition, nutritional functionality, and other critical attributes like authenticity, provenance, purity, and freshness. This data can also be used to compare products and explore how to maintain their nutritional value under various conditions, ensuring quality during transit and storage.

“This ‘fingerprinting’ approach will have many applications for the food industry. It will enable industry partners to monitor and verify food quality, underpin the commercialisation of high-value nutraceutical food products, and offer a translational bridge to the food science industry. It will also enable stakeholders anywhere along the supply chain to ascertain food and food-product attributes such as composition, quality, contamination, authenticity and nutritional efficacy. Our approach will enable food quality monitoring and allow fingerprint traceability. This will help Australian producers achieve higher prices for their goods in premium markets and boost the country’s reputation as a supplier of some of the best agricultural products to the world.” – Dr Ruey-Leng Loo, Senior Researcher, ANPC

ANPC. Credit: FFS

The project team is developing quick, reliable, and affordable methods to fingerprint food, beverages, and eventually nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products, making it easier for producers to validate their product claims.

“Ultimately, [we] aim to develop an easy-to-use, robust and high-throughput system that will allow the food industry to incorporate fingerprinting approaches as part of their production systems. It will enable measurement and monitoring of food products in real time,” explains Dr Loo.

Scientific validation of a product’s nutritional composition, provenance, quality, sustainability, and health benefits will unlock new market opportunities. This will help Australian agrifood producers secure higher prices for their products domestically and gain a competitive edge in high-value export markets.

ANPC senior researcher and ‘ANPC Analytics’ project lead Dr Ruey-Leng Loo, with technical specialist
Dr Sung-Tong Chin. Credit: ANPC/ Murdoch University

This project is the first phase of a broader initiative. Over time, the team aims to analyse a diverse range of Australian food and beverage products, creating an extensive ‘food metabolomic library’ that will continue to benefit the industry.