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The Food Programme

The herb and spice scam?

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4943 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What’s really in your spice rack? In this exclusive investigation by The Food Programme, Jaega Wise investigates the authenticity of spices sold by a number of high street, online and health food chains. Using brand new technology outside of the lab for the first time, she will test herbs and spices from some of the biggest household names and retailers, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Amazon and more. Plus, we hear from leading experts on the UK’s food defence frontline to find out just how challenging it is to detect fraud and police this lucrative area. Produced by Nina Pullman for BBC Audio in Bristol.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

0:03.8

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

0:08.6

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

0:15.3

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

0:19.8

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

0:23.7

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

0:28.4

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

0:30.2

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

0:36.1

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

0:39.7

BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

0:44.7

Have you ever considered what's really in your spice rack?

0:47.8

Me neither.

0:48.9

But as I discover in this week's program

0:51.2

and exclusive investigation, those jars or pots might not be what they say they are.

0:57.4

In this program, we test spices bought from household brands, major supermarkets, corner shops and online marketplaces, and some of our

1:05.9

results may well surprise you.

1:08.6

I'm Jager Wise and this is the food programme. The first red flag among the Oregonos.

1:16.0

And it is Amber.

1:17.0

So there's a problem with this sample.

1:19.0

That's quite shocking.

1:21.0

So we need that to be reviewed further in a laboratory.

1:24.8

Goodness, surprised.

...

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