Food forensics live at the LT department

What do underfilling of pre-packaged products, manipulated sensors in milk production and pepper containing piperine have in common? They are all real cases of food fraud that Dr Andreas Müller, food forensic scientist and expert in food safety and risk management, has been actively participating in investigating.

We recently had the pleasure of welcoming him as part of an exciting and impressive guest lecture in the Quality Management module at the specialist field of General Business Administration and QM. With numerous case studies directly from his professional practice, he took us into the world of food forensics - entertaining, related to practice and at the same time highly insightful.

A special introduction: the reference to the mother of a famous rock guitarist who once mistakenly refined her famous spaghetti sauce with cannabis instead of parsley, thereby significantly increasing customer loyalty. What was an oversight back then is now symbolic of a phenomenon with global implications - the systematic manipulation of food to "increase margins".

The examples ranged from stretched milk and unauthorised use of organic labels to confectionery containing narcotics. The importance of scientific expertise - from chemistry and physics to computer science - in uncovering such cases was particularly impressive. An understanding of business administration also helps to uncover hidden financial drivers for manipulation.

"No forensics without STEM" was one of the key messages. Only those who understand production processes can recognise where and how they are being manipulated.

Initial insights into perpetrator profiles were also discussed - an aspect that we would like to explore in greater depth in a future presentation.

We would like to thank Dr Andreas Müller for this exciting and informative contribution - and for changing our perspective on what ends up on our plates every day.