Detection and quantification of adulteration in milk and dairy products: A novel and sensitive qPCR-based method

•A novel qPCR method was able to detect and quantify cow, buffalo, goat and sheep DNA in milk and dairy products.•Established detection limit was 0.016 ng for the four species.•The limit of detection of cow DNA in buffalo, goat and sheep DNA samples was 0.1% (0.01 ng)•This method is able to detect and quantify adulteration between cows, buffaloes, goats and sheep dairy samples.