Keith Belk, PhD
Dr. Keith Belk is the Director of Eurofins’ Advanced Learning Institute and Professor and Holder of the Monfort Endowed Chair, Center for Meat Safety & Quality, Colorado State University (CSU), and as an Adjunct Professor in the Colorado School of Public Health. Previously, he served as Professor and Head of the Department of Animal Sciences at CSU. He earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from CSU, and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. He currently serves in a consulting role as the Director of Education for Eurofins Rapid Microbiology Laboratories, LLC. Dr. Belk is also a member of the International Committee for the National Western Stock Show, the Board of Directors for the International Stockmen’s Educational Foundation, on the Academic Advisory Committee for the Meat Institute Protein PACT, and on the technical advisory committees for Sustainable Beef, JBS, Colorado Premium Foods, and Hawkins.
Below are resources from Dr. Keith Belk:
Food fraud, also known as economically motivated adulteration, is widespread worldwide. Food fraud involves deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients or food packaging, labeling, product information or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain. Food fraud can adversely impact consumer health, product quality, and brand reputation.
As Minneola, a hybrid between grapefruit and mandarin, has become more popular it may be susceptible to fraud and/or adulteration. This poster shows the phenolic pattern of this fruit, in relation to other orange, grapefruit and mandarin fruits that may be used to identify its juice or juice concentrate.
Eurofins presents at AOAC 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting & Exposition. Adulteration to fruit juices has been a long-standing problem in food processing. While analytical tests exist to detect cheaper juices in more expensive ones, an ongoing problem arises when lime juice is blended with lemon juice. Due to their chemical similarities, this requires new in-depth methods.
Food fraud has been a topic that continues to be of high interest. Below are the top risks that should be considered when developing your food fraud plan.
During this webinar, Tim Lombardo of Eurofins Food Assurance discussed the differences between food security, food safety, food fraud, and food defense. He provided a short history of FSMA and reviewed regulations for food defense and intentional adulteration protection.
Fingerprinting Fruits Using Coumarins & Psoralens, Authentication Tool for Meyer Lemons
This poster describes some of the work Eurofins has conducted on procedures to help control the quality of agave syrups.
The risks of food fraud are many, but with the right tools and partners, your brand can successfully complete a mitigation plan and audit.