Maintaining the integrity of New Zealand's food exports and our reputation as a high-quality exporter is ''critical'' for New Zealand's future, Russell Frew says.
Prof Frew, of the University of Otago chemistry department, established and now directs the department's Isotrace Research Laboratory, which uses isotope analysis to trace the origin of foods.
With key export markets becoming increasingly aware of the provenance of food, scientists have turned to regionally distinct isotopic geochemical signals in soils and rain.
These create unique ''fingerprints'' that provide ''geographical authentication'', enabling foodstuffs to be traced to their place of origin.
Early last year, Prof Frew took up a three and a-half year secondment to the United Nations, as a food safety specialist, traceability, in a joint Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and International Atomic Energy Agency division, based near the Austrian capital, Vienna.
He works in a Food and Environmental Protection laboratory and has already been involved in a big food traceability study involving rice grown in Southeast Asia.
Prof Frew said many countries and supermarket operators were demanding increased food traceability after recent food safety incidents.
Several infants died and thousands were hospitalised in China in 2008 after milk and infant formula, and other food materials, were adulterated with melamine.
And more than 50 people died, most of them in Germany, after an E. coli outbreak in northern Germany in mid-2011.
Prof Frew said cucumbers exported from Spain had initially been wrongly blamed for the outbreak, and this damaged that previously lucrative trade.
''New Zealand is one of the major producers of milk product in the world and it commands a premium,'' he said in an interview during a visit to Dunedin.
That premium price made our products a potential target for counterfeiters wishing to sell their products under a forged New Zealand brand.
It was in New Zealand's best interests to maintain its high reputation, including through traceability of milk products.
The German E. coli outbreak illustrated how quickly international reputations could be badly damaged, he said.
Later this year, he will lead a big ''mapping'' study involving milk products from 14 countries, including milk powder from New Zealand and milk from China, to enable milk to be traced to its country of origin.
FAO member nations faced growing demands to introduce food traceability and verification but some countries were technically unable to provide it.
His research also aimed to build the capacity of countries in Southeast Asia and elsewhere to undertake their own food testing, and to make testing techniques more accessible and affordable.
