On April 18, 2024, specialists from the testing laboratory of the Orenburg branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Grain Quality Assessment Center”, when determining the qualitative composition of cheese, discovered sterols – vegetable oils and fats, which indicates the falsification of the product. To reduce the cost of dairy products, unscrupulous producers replace high-quality biologically valuable raw materials with plant components.
Information about the detection was entered into the Vesta automated laboratory research recording system and sent to the Rosselkhoznadzor Office for the Orenburg Region.
Since the beginning of the year, the laboratory has examined 15 samples of various dairy products for the presence of vegetable fats; the result was positive in 4 samples of cheese.
The requirements for assessing the quality and safety of dairy products are established by the technical regulations of the Customs Union TR CU 033/2013 “On the safety of milk and dairy products,” according to which the fat phase of dairy products is identified by the composition of sterols.
The main methods for determining the falsification of the fat phase are methods for detecting plant sterols and determining the fatty acid composition of milk fat.
In the Orenburg branch, the study of vegetable oils and fats on a plant basis is carried out in accordance with the method established by GOST 33490-2015 “Milk and dairy products. Detection of vegetable oils and vegetable-based fats by gas-liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection” In particular, specialists use a gas chromatography method based on alkaline hydrolysis followed by extraction of the unsaponifiable sterol fraction and further identification of peaks on the chromatogram.
Tags: Specialists Orenburg branch revealed fact falsification dairy products Orenburg News
