Food Labeling and Authetification Technology

In Japan, the consumer trust in food labeling has been shaken due to cases of people falsifying the origin country of produce or ingredients of processed food recently. We have international standards for food labeling. Codex, an international organization which was created to develop food standards and related texts, has adopted the “General Standard for the Labeling of Prepackaged Foods”. In Japan, the Law Concerning Standardization and Proper Labeling of Agricultural and Forestry Products (JAS law) sets up food labeling regulations which require operators to label mandatory information for consumer′s choice, including country of origin for produce and list of ingredients and net contents for processed food. The Food Sanitation Act sets up a regulation in order to prevent health damage, which includes labeling of ingredients that cause allergies.  Falsification is not a recent problem. It has been an perplexing issue of food trading. It is difficult to know whether sugar is added to honey or not by looking. Analysis is an important tool to prove authenticity. A method of stable-isotope analysis is described in the Codex standard for honey for determination of added sugar. Nowadays new technologies are introduced to analyze for authenticity. DNA analysis is used to determine species of fish and livestock. We can deduce the region or country of origin of produce by mineral composition which reflects the soil it grew in.