Dishonest practices in food production, especially false claims of geographical origin, cause billions of dollars in economic damage every year. Botanists have now developed a model that can be used to determine the origin of food in an operative and low-budget manner. Strawberries from Switzerland or olive oil from Italy can be sold at much higher prices than the same products from other countries.

Because both the authorities spend a great time in making false declarations of geographical origin that are assumed to cause an estimated USD 30 million to 40 billion a year in economic damage. One method for detecting food fraud is to determine the δ18O (delta-O-18) value of a product sample, which characterizes the oxygen isotope rate. A case of suspected fraud involved not only collecting reference data from the claimed country of origin, but also comparative data from other regions to disprove the product’s origin. Basel botanist Dr. Florian Cueni has now developed a model in collaboration with Agroisolab GmbH, a company specializing in isotope analysis.

The model is based on temperature, precipitation and humidity data and information about the growing season of a plant, all of which are available from publicly accessible databases. With minor adjustments to this parameters. The model can be used to determine all plant products. Professor Ansgar Kahmen, who led the research project said that this makes it possible to simplify and speed up conventional isotope analysis by accurately simulating the regions of origin of agricultural food stuffs.

The model developed by the Basel botanists is of interest to food forensics officials, when it comes to the origin of confiscated drugs. NGOs such as WWF or Greenpeace are also interested.