Ensuring Product Integrity

By CARRIE LOEWENTHAL MASSEY

Backed by the U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund, the innovative Test4Safety system helps detect adulteration in cooking oil through smart, portable devices.

Do you know what’s in your cooking oil? You may think you do from reading the label, but it can be hard to know for sure. For instance, in August 2019, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) seized nearly 1,500 liters of unlabeled cooking oil in just one raid. The manufacturers were mixing less expensive fats into their oil and then marking up the final product’s sale price by as much as 400 percent, reported The Times of India. Additionally, in January 2020, the American Botanical Council reported the adulteration of extra virgin olive oil as “prolific” globally.

And it’s not just the oils that are suspect. The FSSAI reported in its 2015-16 annual report that one in five analyzed food samples in India showed adulteration or misbranding. In a joint global operation, Europol and INTERPOL seized fake food and drinks worth €230 million between December 2016 and March 2017.

When food manufacturers use lower quality ingredients to cut production costs, they can negate any health benefits their products can impart, change the taste of the food or even harm consumers’health by exposing them to allergens or toxins. Despite this, identifying food fraud and enforcing compliance with best health practices has historically faced obstacles like high costs and delays in testing.

Enter Test4Safety, an international collaboration between Los Angeles-based Oak Analytics and Mumbai-based d technology. Test4Safety aims to enhance public health through instant verification of the authenticity of what we eat and drink. Although it focuses on oils right now, the three basic tenets driving the project overall are that it provides test results within minutes, the testing is done in containers and that the testing entails very low cost. The U.S.India Science and Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF) provided 10 percent of Test4Safety’s initial funding, and “gave us visibility and access to key decision makers in the government and industry, allowing us to deploy our product,” says Deepak Mehrotra, Oak Analytics’chief executive officer. USISTEF supports research and development to generate public good, through the commercialization of technology developed as part of sustained partnerships between U.S. and Indian researchers and entrepreneurs.

Test4Safety’s approach to minimizing product adulteration differs from other existing methods that focus on fortifying packaging. Instead, it looks at the quality of the molecular contents of the product inside the packaging. “Our system consists of a pocket spectrometer that captures the spectral signature of the product and an artificial intelligence (AI) machine-learning-based decision engine, which compares this signature to a database of known good and bad products,” says Mehrotra.

The collaboration between the U.S. and Indian companies was crucial to making the system work. Oak Analytics designed the detection technology—the hardware and software—for the spectrometer, but it needed a database of comparable products, to be able to use the data the devices capture. That’s where d technology came in.

“We are a private research and development organization,” says Deepa Bhajekar, managing director of d technology. “When Oak Analytics was looking for an Indian partner, it identified us. When we met, our ideologies clicked well and we were very aligned on the understanding and technical requirement.”

To build and authenticate the database used for comparison of spectrometer readings, d technology’s role has been to “perform chemical verification tests on samples of various types and blends of oils,” says Mehrotra. “Correlation of spectral signature with the fatty acid profile of an oil is critical for the accuracy of our decision engines.”

The database now includes spectral signatures and “envelopes of acceptability” for Kachi Ghani mustard oil, extra virgin coconut oil, refined coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and ghee—all of which the FSSAI has identified as highest priority oils and fats. Test4Safety has plans to expand its library to include sesame oil, peanut oil as well as blended oils.

Cooking oil samples at d technology.

Courtesy d technology

To date, Test4Safety has deployed close to 50 spectrometers in 11 states across India, where they have been used by FSSAI as well as several oil manufacturers and retailers. “Manufacturers are using our product for supply line security and brand protection,” says Mehrotra. “Retailers have started using it for product authentication.”

Customers simply need a smartphone to use the technology and receive instant results, even without an Internet connection. The machine learning and AI components of the spectrometer operate in the cloud, updating the handset with the latest data whenever an Internet connection is available. The entire test-to-result cycle can take from less than 30 seconds to two minutes. Test4Safety is currently preparing another 50 spectrometers for deployment, though development has slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Mehrotra. He expects Test4Safety’s activity to pick up again by the end of 2020. And when it does, the company has much to look forward to. To determine its course, the company will assess the market feedback it receives.

“Based on the market feedback for oils using this technology, we may move ahead for other liquid products such as milk and alcoholic beverages,” says Bhajekar. “The challenges there will be high and I am quite excited as a scientist to survey those findings. This new technology could speed up the test results and help build data for an online tool.”

Mehrotra sees opportunity in global markets as well. “Although we started in India, we have received interest from neighboring developing countries that face similar supply chain security challenges,” he says. “We are also working with trade associations in the U.S. to provide a system to confirm the authenticity of extra virgin olive oil for restaurant owners and chefs.”

The collaboration between Oak Analytics and d technology is also paving the way for productive technological advances. “Innovative technologies are the future, especially those with accurate, rapid, easy-to-use, quick preliminary data results, and will help industry evaluate safety on an online platform rather than wait for external laboratory test results,” says Bhajekar. “The lab results could serve as a back-up on the early decisions made using rapid technology.”

Carrie Loewenthal Massey is a New York City-based freelance writer.