The TOFoo (True Organic Food) project was selected by Bpifrance and is coordinated by Eurofins (Nantes). The project addresses the establishment of analytical tools to authenticate food products of organic farming origin. CEISAM is one of the 10 partners of the consortium and will be in charge of developing isotope profiling analyzes by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Isotope Ratios by Mass Spectrometry (IRMS). The funding is 625 K € for a period of 66 months.
Despite strict specifications, European regulations and a certification system, the organic farming sector remains vulnerable to practices that questions the compliance with the organic specifications of products. Current physicochemical analyzes show limits to fully characterize the approach of organic agriculture. The TOFoo project proposes the development and implementation of a very wide range of analytical tools.
These methods collect the global analytical fingerprint of the products through a “non-targeted” approach, as well as methods of identifying unauthorized food additives and characterizing manufactured nanoparticles. They will be applied to plant products (fruits, vegetables, cereals) and dairy products.
MIMM team from CEISAM will bring its expertise in the field of isotope analyzes by developing new methodologies focused on milk and wheat. Thus, 2D isotopic 13C NMR will be developed to reduce the analysis time and GC-IRMS 15N profiling of amino acids will be optimized. Similarly, a new NMR analytical device, allowing several analyzes on the same sample will be developed and the prototype validated during the TOFoo project.