In the European (EU) market, to preserve freedom of choice for
the consumer and to protect the food and feed chain, authorisations
for genetically modified (GM) food or feed products are subjected to
the EU legislation (Dir. 2001/18/EC; Reg. EC No. 1829/2003; Reg. EC
No. 1830/2003). The commercialisation as well as the detection of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) make up an integrated part
of these EU regulations. In this context, several methods to detect
GMOs in food and feed matrices have been developed. These
methods, based essentially on real-time PCR technologies, target
the most common elements present in GMOs (Broeders, De
Keersmaecker, & Roosens, 2012b). Screening methods, usually used
as the first step in GMO analysis, allow the detection of GMOs in a
given food/feed sample. In case of positive responses for some GM
targets, it allows to narrow down the number of EU-authorised GM
events to be identified using event-specific methods in a second