This Technical Specification specifies a method for the qualitative detection of celery (Apium graveolens) in emulsion-type sausages (e.g. Frankfurter, Wiener).
Real-time PCR detection of celery is based on an 101 bp (base pair) sequence from the gene of the mannitol dehydrogenase (GenBank Acc. No. AF067082) of celery (Apium graveolens).
The method has been validated on emulsion-type sausages (Bavarian “Leberkäse??) spiked with celery. For this purpose meat batter containing mass fractions of 50 % pork meat, 25 % pork fat, 23 % crushed ice and 1,8 % of a mixture of sodium chloride, nitrite, nitrate, phosphates and ascorbates was prepared according to a standard procedure for emulsion-type sausage. The meat batter was spiked with either ground celery seeds or celery root powder to 1000 mg/kg. Lower spiking levels were obtained by diluting with celery-free meat batter. The batter was stuffed into casings and heated at 65 °C for 60 min [2].