A Few Ways You Can Spot Food Fraud.

Fraud

When fraud is mentioned, it’s quite common to think of money. However, there are multiple forms of fraud. In this blog, we discuss the potential effects food fraud might have on its users and producers, along with some examples.

What is Food Fraud?

The original definition of food fraud is “the deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering with, or misrepresentation of food”. By taking a closer look at the definition, we can break these down into 3 key areas.

1.     Substitution Fraud – In which substances are swapped out for a cheaper alternative.

2.     Addition Fraud – This is when extra ingredients are added without being mentioned on the label.

3.     Geographic Fraud –  When the product has false claims of the location is it sourced from.

Examples

Tesco Horse Meat Scandal (Substitution Fraud) – Arguably, the most known food fraud case is horse meat found in Tesco frozen burgers. This is a great example of submission fraud. Tesco had substituted “Beef” with a small per cent of horse meat to save on the quantity of meat.

Fruit Juice / Milk / Olive Oil (Addition Fraud) – I Have some bad news for everyone here; we have all fallen for this type of fraud before. The case of additional fraud in all these products is the addition of extra materials such as water to dilute milk/juice to make it seem more than it is. This also applies to olive oil with the addition of rapeseed or sunflower oil as a cheap alternative.  

Fish / Coffee (Geographic Fraud) – The location of a product can make the price skyrocket. Products such as fish and coffee tend to give misleading information about the location of the product. For example, Coffee might say it’s from Colombia when really the supplier has just imported it through there.

Impact Of Food Fraud

The impact of food fraud can be disastrous. Although the examples given above might seem harmless, they can still result in severe problems such as.

·       Human illness, in some cases death, due to use of hazardous materials. For example, in the 2008 China milk scandal, it was found that babies’ milk contained small traces of melamine which is a nitrogen-based compound used by manufacturers to create plastic dishware. Due to the use of melamine which is dangerous for human consumption 8 babies were reported dead and 330,000 reported as affected.

·       Loss of consumer trust.

·       Loss of revenue.

·      In some cases, jail time. For example, it was reported that in 2019 672 people were arrested or detained due to counterfeit foods and beverages.

How To Spot Food Fraud

To spot food fraud, let’s take a look at the examples given above. For example, in olive oil, the product might say product of Italy when it might have only been imported through Italy or bottled there. The best way to identify this is the price.  If something is being sold extremely cheap compared to the alternatives, this is usually a giveaway.

Another example is Fish. Cheaper fish is usually sold at a higher price because of the area the fish is caught. Unfortunately, there aren’t many ways of checking the validity of this information from a supermarket. Therefore, we recommend purchasing products through a fishmonger or butcher as you can ask questions about the meat before you purchase it.

What Can Be Done To Mitigate Food Fraud?

British Consortium Global Standards are a suite of standards that are controls for companies to put in place to mitigate the likelihood of Food Fraud. This includes the need to perform a Vulnerability Assessment Critical Control Point, more commonly known as VACCP. This assessment takes into consideration the characteristics of the food such as; where it originates from, how complex the supply chain is, economic factors such as the value of the product, historical and emerging threats associated with the product, the form of the product and how easy fraud would be to commit. To learn more about the BRCGS standards, check out our microsite here.

Contact us for more information or assistance with mitigating food fraud here.