Campden BRI has extended its accreditation by UKAS to cover their DNA-based meat species authenticity testing service. Originally developed by Campden BRI for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) over 10 years ago, the test uses real-time PCR to allow sensitive detection of meat species. The accreditation is timely as the FSA is now encouraging the industry to test for species cross-contamination at levels less than 1.0% on a weight for weight basis¹. Thus, standard immunoassay tests used by the industry are not sensitive enough.

Reference: ¹Food Standards Agency FSA 14/01/04 Open Board – 21 January 2014 Setting a threshold for contamination of processed meat products with undeclared meat species