'Austrian' vegetables often grown abroad

Gerald König, the head of Austria's largest sales organisation for vegetables and fruit, LGV, estimates that around 10% of all vegetables sold as vegetables grown in Austria are actually grown abroad. The LGV had its own vegetable growers and contenders checked by the renowned German research institute TUV Rheinland to verify the exact origin of vegetables. This was done using a water isotope investigations, writes diepresse.com. Among König's own vegetable growers, there were no problems.

König advises the Agrarmarkt Austria (AMA) to also do a water isotope research for finding the black sheep. At the moment the AMA can't guarantee the origin of vegetables from Austria. A study done by TUV Rheinland costs around 300 Euro and main German sales chains already use water isotope research. Seeing as foods almost always contain water, isotope research combined with other methods can give information on the origin of food. Especially among very valuable foods they can help determine the authenticity of the foods.