Molecular identification of animal species in food: Transition from research laboratories to the regulatory laboratories

摘要

The increase in the global movement of animal-derived foods has led to a corresponding increase in problems faced by regulatory agencies as they strive to guarantee the safety and wholesomeness of imported foods. The issues that regulators face from the global movement of human foods range from product authenticity and identity to food safety, which entails ensuring that products are as claimed and are free of harmful microbial and chemical contaminants. Whilst live animal identification systems have been around since the time of Hammurabi, the first efforts to ensure the authenticity of animal-derived products appeared in the 14th century AD (Blancou, 2001). Historically, product authenticity was an effort to ensure human safety by preventing the spread of certain communicable diseases that were thought to be transmitted through animal-derived products. Today, those concerns for product identity have evolved into issues of food safety to ensure that animal-derived food products are free from microbial and chemical contamination.