Using space technology to detect counterfeit whisky

The UK is Europe’s largest producer of spirits and in 2021, Scotch Whisky exports were worth £4.5 billion. The spirits industry is strategically important as it makes one of the largest positive contributions to the UK balance of trade, accounting for around 20 per cent of all food and drink exports. More specifically, the Scotch Whisky sector exports to 180 countries with particularly strong growth in India and China and contributes approximately £1 billion in taxes each year to the UK Exchequer.

The high value of the products serves as an incentive for criminal activity (such as adulteration and substitution), defrauding the consumer, creating significant safety concerns and resulting in lost revenue for genuine producers and governments.

To develop new analytical methods and technologies to classify and detect counterfeit alcohols, the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI) signed up to SPRINT to access funded expertise and technology in the Space Instrumentation Discipline at The Open University.

The project enabled the SWRI to leverage The Open University’s track record of developing solutions using gas chromatography and comprehensive gas chromatography, used by Dr Geraint Morgan and his colleagues in the School of Physical Sciences.

The team worked in collaboration with the SWRI to develop an optimised, fully automated analysis method. Follow-on funding through the Innovation Return on Research (IROR) and the Excelerator programmes at the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI) has allowed them to work with IBM Research Europe and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) software engineers to further develop automated classification algorithms, which enables SWRI to screen and detect unadulterated and fake whisky samples for their members, who make up 90 per cent of the production capacity in the Scotch Whisky sector. Ultimately, the aim of the ongoing Excelerator project is to be able to offer the solution as a commercial product and service.

Adapting chemical analysis tools developed for space missions to help stamp out counterfeit spirits

The SWRI reached out to the Open University to evaluate a range of traditional one-dimensional and comprehensive, two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC) techniques to enhance its authentication capabilities and more accurately detect counterfeit products. As the name suggests, the latter methods use two gas chromatography columns, each with a different stationary phase, to improve the separation of a whisky’s complex mixture of volatile compounds. As well as identifying whether additional compounds can be detected using a second column, the project also involved assessing the benefits of a range of operational changes implemented to improve speed and robustness. Ultimately, this method has allowed nearly 400 compounds to be accurately identified and quantified in a single whisky sample, allowing each whisky to be fingerprinted based on its unique profile.

As world leaders in space instrumentation research, the OU has built key scientific hardware for numerous ESA missions. For this project, the team drew on the ability of their miniaturised analytical equipment to ‘sniff’ the chemical composition of a comet.

Dr Geraint Morgan the OU’s Enterprise Lead in the School of Physical Sciences said: “Our multidisciplinary team of chemists, physicists, engineers, microbiologists and software engineers was assembled to create miniaturised detectors for space. We’re using that expertise to create end-to-end solutions for businesses on earth.”

The OU’s method can detect thousands of different chemical compounds, which is perfect for identifying the unique ‘chemical fingerprint’ that gives each brand of Scotch its distinctive taste.

While in the short-term a laboratory-based approach has been adopted, the longer-term aim envisages using the OU’s space instrumentation expertise to jointly develop a robust system that can be used globally.

Techniques such as GCxGC analyse and produce large amounts of data. Efficient processing is required to provide a quick outcome, in this case judgement of authenticity. To tackle this, the project was extended by linking into the IROR programme, a collaboration between the Hartree Centre of the Science and Technology Facilities Council and IBM Research. This partnership will develop analytics and AI models to aid the identification of authentic Scotch Whisky using the more complex data from the GCxGC analyses.

Benefits achieved through SPRINT’s support include:

• The project addresses the classification and detection of counterfeit alcohols:
  • Scottish scientists found that more than a third of 55 bottles of vintage Scotch tested in a lab were fake (1)
  • About €2.8 billion gets lost annually in Europe because of counterfeiting in the wine and spirits industry (2)

• Through SPRINT, the SWRI successfully secured further funding to carry out advanced authenticity research. SWRI input leverages value of around 60/1 and established new partners in the OU and IBM.

• Follow-on funding was secured through the Innovation Return on Research (IROR) and Excelerator programmes from the HNCDI. This has allowed SWRI to work with the OU IBM Research/STFC to develop automated classification algorithms.
  • This in turn, allows SWRI to screen and detect adulterated and fake whisky samples for their members, who make up 90 per cent of the production capacity in the Scotch Whisky sector.

• Interest in this and other SPRINT projects (specifically with LECO) has generated investment from the OU in over £300k worth of high specification instrumentation and software from LECO Instruments. In addition, the Open University has entered into a formal collaboration agreement with LECO Instruments – to jointly develop further novel applications for the capability.

• The project featured in one of the University’s impact case studies for the 2021 REF submission.

• Lessons learnt from this work has since been applied to both Irish and Welsh whisky, supporting the sectors.

• The OU method can detect thousands of different chemical compounds, which is perfect for identifying the unique ‘chemical fingerprint’ that gives each brand of Scotch its distinctive taste.

• The OU evaluation will help those distillers making whisky blends to manage batch-to-batch variation in the product and consistently retain the characteristics.

• The outputs of the project were disseminated to the UK distilled spirit sector during a talk at the Worldwide Distilled Spirits Conference in Edinburgh in September 2021, an IBM web article and even the OU’s Impact Report.

• In additional funding, the collaboration has gained:
  • £26.5k from the OU in Scotland UIF
  • £27.3k internally from the OU Space Strategic Research Area
  • £300k OU investment to purchase the loan equipment from LECO
  • £25k in-kind loan of software from Agilent Technologies

(1) According to an Inside IBM Research article

(2) According to the European Union Intellectual Property Office. EUIPO assesses counterfeiting cost in spirits and wine category (beveragedaily.com)

Helping to protect the Scotch Whisky industry

Professor James Brosnan, Director of Research at the SWRI said: “As a premium product, Scotch Whisky is a counterfeiting target in both mature and developing markets. The Scotch Whisky Research Institute is greatly encouraged by the potential of the advanced techniques developed at the Open University to help us combat counterfeiting. Scientific progress is most effective when different ideas and expertise can collaborate, and I welcome the innovative drive of the SPRINT programme to put space science to work on Earth.

Dr Ian Goodall, Senior Scientist in charge of Product Protection at SWRI added: “The high value of the products produced by the sector provides opportunities and incentives for criminal activity, such as adulteration or substitution, defrauding the consumer, creating significant safety concerns, and resulting in lost revenue for genuine producers and governments. The spirit industry’s work to tackle such criminal activity is therefore of key importance in protecting sales and jobs within the sector.

“SWRI looks forward to exploring the potential of the advanced techniques developed at The Open University to help us combat counterfeiting.”

“This collaborative research undertaken with The Open University team evaluates advanced analytical instrumentation and techniques for their advantages for spirit drink authentication, whether applied by the SWRI to its own authentication work or by its member companies to the authentication and protection of their key spirit brands.

“The SWRI has started to implement changes to its standard GC-MS method based on suggested optimisations and is partway through its testing of how commercially available and developed processing tools might increase the capability and efficiency of its authentication service. These developmental changes have unfortunately been delayed due to a focus on core activities necessitated by Covid-19 restrictions.

“However, already demonstrated advantages provided by the optimised GC-MS method, such as the reduced consumables cost, shorter run times, improved peak resolution and increased signal to noise ratios, make its adoption a formality. Increasing the number of samples submitted to GC-MS analysis will increase the number of samples identified as counterfeit. Improving the analysis method’s cost effectiveness and speed was necessary to achieve this goal. A significant component to this project’s impact has been the added value provided by involvement, established through The Open University, of additional collaborative partners (LECO and IBM Research UK).

“In addition to creating partnerships that will hopefully continue to yield benefits, all these collaborations have progressed the SWRI’s understanding of the statistical interpretation of large quantities of chromatography-based data. Such knowledge has been identified by the SWRI and its industry members as vital for future analytical research throughout the sector (i.e., not just for authentication, but for understanding flavour development, product control and process efficiencies).”

Strengthening authentication for whisky blends

Dr Morgan, the OU’sEnterprise Lead commented: “As world leaders in space instrumentation research, we’ve built key scientific hardware for numerous European Space Agency (ESA) missions.

“Our miniaturised analytical equipment was used to ‘sniff’ the chemical composition of a comet.

Now, as a partner in the SPRINT programme, we’re working with the Scotch Whisky Research Institute to translate that innovative technology into novel commercial products.

“Our method can detect thousands of different chemical compounds, which is perfect for identifying the unique ‘chemical fingerprint’ that gives each brand of Scotch its distinctive taste. Ultimately, the aim is to use our expertise, gained in miniaturising technology for space, to develop a portable system for on-the-spot detection and enforcement.”

Collectively, the OU, IBM, STFC and SWRI have developed optimised analytical assays and machine learning models to separate the complex mixture of volatile species present and identify even the most subtle differences between samples. This classification algorithm determines the likelihood a given sample’s profile is from a previously identified whisky, providing a method to distinguish between real and counterfeit whiskies. The outputs were disseminated in a talk to the distilled spirit sector at the Worldwide Distilled Spirits Conference, Edinburgh, in March 2021.

The OU’s ability to characterise batch-to-batch variations is also of interest to distillers other than the SWRI’s members. This has been demonstrated by the SPRINT project with Efficiency Technologies Ltd, where the OU’s team has developed analytical methods to enable the development of an optimised premium quality distilled spirit, which is currently under evaluation by two leading supermarkets for sale in the UK food and drink sector.