The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) has discovered evidence of fraudulent Kakadu plum extracts in international circulation. The endemic Australian bush food is largely wild harvested from northern Australia by Indigenous Australians.
The Kakadu plum crop is an emerging Australian industry and is an important economic and cultural asset for Indigenous communities across northern Australia.
The interest in Kakadu plum extracts is driven by the fruit’s high levels of vitamin C and other antioxidant compounds, as well as its uses in the nutraceutical and cosmetics industries. Earlier this year, a study also found it could work as a natural alternative to synthetic chemicals used in meat preservation.
The market value of Kakadu plum in Australia is expected to rise from $1.6 million to $3.5 million by 2025 due to its health benefits and versatility.
Published in Food Control, ANSTO analysed samples of supposed Kakadu plum extract from overseas, and compared it with genuine samples provided by the Northern Australian Kakadu Plum Alliance (NAAKPA), who represent Aboriginal owned producers in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
The study, led by Mariel Keaney and supervised by Macquarie University Professor of Environmental Sciences, Neil Saintilan, and Dr Debashish Mazumder at ANSTO, was able to differentiate between the genuine and fraudulent Kakadu plums through isotope analysis.
ANSTO has been generating distinct signatures based on the isotopic and elemental profile, known as iso-elemental fingerprints, for individual growers in the Alliance. Unique to a specific location, the fingerprints are being added to a reference database to help identify where fruit comes from in the future.
ANSTO Food Provenance project lead, Dr Debashish Mazumder, said that although various food provenance techniques exist, many are impractical because of testing costs, and concerns about timeliness and accuracy.
“Testing regimes are also very specific as each resource has different characteristics. The analysis suggest that our iso-elemental technology is a useful technique for determining fraud in the supply chain.”
In this study, investigators used stable isotope analysis and X-ray fluorescence elemental profiling to evaluate the authenticity of 13 commercially available Kakadu plum powdered samples purchased online from Australian and overseas suppliers and compared them against four powdered samples directly provided by First Nations harvesters.
All the overseas supplied powders in the study were found to be fakes, with the signature of isotopic carbon acting as a key determinant in distinguishing between the Australian and overseas supplied Kakadu Plum powder.
NAAKPA CEO, Paul Saeki, said that “the application of science-based traceability method will help to protect the emerging Kakadu plum industry and ensure the benefits of commercialisation are enjoyed by First Nations communities.”
