Corporate report

Authenticity Methodology Working Group (AWMG) annual summary 2024

Published 4 July 2025

The Authenticity Methodology Working Group (AMWG) evaluates scientific research developed within Defra’s Food Authenticity Research Programme, ensuring methods developed are robust and fit for purpose. AMWG also advises on the wider application of methods.

This paper provides a summary of the group’s work in 2024. Activities include:

• providing technical direction on research to develop tools and methods for authenticity testing throughout the lifecycle of projects
• peer-review of final reports
• the provision of technical advice supporting specific issues to inform the development of policy on food labelling, composition and standards

Project advice

In 2024 AMWG provided advice on the following ongoing projects:

Harmonisation and standardisation in the field of Next Generation Sequencing 

This project, delivered by the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC), aims to develop standards and harmonise Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) approaches applicable for the verification of food authenticity, with a view to working towards agreed performance targets to enable greater confidence in results.

The project explores the scope and limitations of NGS, as applied to food authenticity testing. It takes recent learnings from the fields of clinical science and microbiology, where the use of NGS has been well established. In addition, the project further investigates the qualitative and quantitative nature of NGS, as well as dependency upon databases and reference materials. 

Bottled water sampling project: composition of third country produced spring water and bottled drinking water

This project, by the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera), aims to provide data on the composition of third country (non-UK) produced spring waters and bottled drinking waters.

Honey authenticity testing

AMWG has informed several workstreams developing standardised practices and harmonised approaches to support fit for purpose methods for honey authenticity testing:

• Fera UK Honey NMR Database Project – this project aims to assess the fitness for purpose of the honey database and archive established by Fera and the UK Honey Association which contains Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectra of honey that is representative of the UK market
• Honey Database Interrogation Framework – this project, jointly funded by Defra and the Government Chemist, aims to develop a framework to allow independent scrutiny of proprietary honey authenticity databases to assess their fitness for purpose on a case-by-case basis
• United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) pilot on the assessment of opinions and interpretations from non-targeted food authenticity testing methods – this work, jointly funded by Defra and FSA, aims to establish a consistent approach for the accreditation of non-targeted authenticity testing methods
• publication of the review of the analytical approach taken for a European Commission honey survey, by the Authenticity Methodology Working Group (AMWG) technical subgroup

Peer review

AMWG peer-reviewed the project report Review of capability of methods for the verification of country of origin (CoO) for food and feed.This project, delivered by Fera, undertook an international review of the literature from the last 10 years to identify current and emerging methods for the verification of the CoO of various food and feed commodities.

The review considered:

• the regulatory landscape
• international standardisation activities
• the availability of associated tools such as databases, reference materials and proficiency testing

The review engaged stakeholders and experts, including food suppliers and enforcement bodies to identify current practices and emerging technologies for CoO analysis. It identified any gaps, challenges, limitations, and opportunities. 

Evidence-based recommendations were made on the most suitable methods, emerging technologies, and supportive tools to support the delivery of official controls and to inform future labelling policy development on fair and transparent origin labelling. Barriers to the implementation of methods were discussed which included challenges relating to the curation of databases. Suggestions for further work were also provided to fill the gaps identified and improve capabilities. AMWG reflected on the importance of a weight of evidence (WoE) approach, where authenticity methods are not confirmatory (such as in origin analysis) – referencing the WoE toolkit produced and published by an AMWG Technical Sub-Group (TSG).

Research consultation

In 2024, AMWG were consulted on research relating to:

• offal – this work aims to develop and optimise the analytical methods evaluated and recommended for further work in previous the Defra project FA0185, to assess whether they are fit for purpose for laboratory uptake and routine analysis, including potential use by official food control laboratories
• meat traceability and blockchain – this work is an exploratory project to develop a meat traceability system using blockchain ‘distributed ledger’ technology
• edible oils – this project, being delivered by Fera, aims to improve laboratory capability and support official control sampling for the authenticity of edible oils by understanding the current landscape for testing; assessing the available methods; and identifying any gaps, challenges and opportunities in the methods identified
• Horizon Europe Thematic Network Tackling Food Fraud – this project, being delivered by the Food Authenticity Network at LGC, aims to establish, expand, and mobilise the European Food Fraud Community of Practice (EFF-CoP) fostering interconnectivity between research and innovation, and end-users to maximise the efficiency of efforts to combat food fraud in the EU

AMWG secretariat

In 2024, the AMWG secretariat has:

• set-up the Authenticity Methodology Working Group website to enable publication and signposting of AMWG reports and advice
• developed a committee framework outlining the terms and function of the committee and its members
• organised and run a joint workshop to bring together members of AMWG and the Food Authenticity Steering Group (ASG) to discuss existing and future challenges and potential solutions in the food authenticity area to inform the future direction of Defra’s Food Authenticity Research Programme with the intended outcome being to develop a prioritised set of research needs
• executed a recruitment campaign that resulted in the appointment of 4 new members with expertise in spectroscopic methods, molecular biology, genetic technologies and experience in the food industry as well as a public analyst