Food Fraud Advisors

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Coming to a store near you….

Keeping abreast of food fraud and food safety news is a daily activity and one of my favourite work tasks.  This week, as I skimmed through food industry trivia and pondered the launch of chocolate cheese (seriously), the two most alarming and unusual food fraud incidents I came across were news of thirty five businesses who were caught by Chinese authorities adding opium to food and a British business that was prosecuted for selling ‘almond’ powder that contained peanut.  By the way,  you did see that correctly: opium.  And just for the record, opium is not a permitted food additive.  Peanut-contamination of anything is, of course, a very serious risk to the safety of allergic consumers and has resulted in deaths in recent years.  It’s tragic to see that this type of adulteration continues to occur.

Having digested thousands of words of information about prosecutions, investigations, trends in food fashions and the changing regulatory landscape, I began to notice some patterns and found a couple of big red flags for future risks of food fraud.

Halal

Halal certifications are increasingly needed for market access for almost every food type at both the retail and wholesale level.  A halal product is often indistinguishable from its non-halal counterpart which means that everyday consumers are not able to verify food sellers’ claims about halal status.  Falsely claiming halal for a food item is an easy fraud to perpetrate, especially during the retail sale of un-packaged food in restaurants and takeaway stores.  Halal fraud can be as sophisticated as forgery of certification documents accompanying bulk shipments of food or as simple as dishonest signage in a takeaway store.  There have been a number of incidences of halal fraud in the news lately and these are almost certainly the tip of the iceberg.  I see very high risks in the South East Asian countries of Indonesia and Malaysia; these being some of the world’s biggest markets for halal food and having variable and sometimes chaotic food supply chains accompanied by uneven regulatory enforcement.  However, halal forgery can happen even in the most sophisticated markets with a recent prosecution in the United Kingdom in which the fraudster is alleged to have netted a quarter of a million pounds.  With this kind of money up for grabs, you can expect halal fraud to continue.

Is this meat halal?

Probiotics

Probiotics are among the hottest food ingredients for the healthy eating market right now.  New technology is claimed to enable probiotic bacteria – good bacteria – to survive in an ever-increasing range of food types, taking them beyond traditional yoghurts and ‘Yukult’ style dairy drinks.  Probiotic foods command a premium price and, as with many of the most vulnerable food fraud targets, the probiotic components are indiscernible to consumers.  There is a real and growing risk that fraudulent claims will be made about the quantity and types of live bacteria in food products, with the possibility of both accidental and deliberate frauds.  Any food business can make a mistake with formulations and shelf life, leading to discrepancies between the quantity of live bacteria in the food and what is claimed on the pack.  Premium brand owners are less likely to risk their reputation with unsubstantiated claims and these businesses are more likely to have the in-house expertise and resources to properly verify their on-pack claims.  It’s the smaller food companies and newer brands that I worry about:  they are much more likely to find themselves inadvertently or knowingly selling ‘probiotic’ products that don’t live up to the marketing hype.

Cold Brew Coffee

Can you fake cold brew coffee?  Cold brewed coffee appears to be here to stay but it has a high price tag and would be easy to fake.  Could the average consumer taste the difference between conventional and cold-brew coffee?  I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t, especially when served icy cold or with lots of milk.  The production method for cold brewed coffee is slower than conventional brewing, which usually means more costly.  And that means food businesses could be tempted to cut a few corners.  Even hipster brands that build their messages around product authenticity can find themselves in a scandal when financial pressures increase, as was the case with an ultra-premium bean-to-bar chocolate brand recently.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few incidences of fraudulent claims about cold-brewed coffee hitting the headlines this year.

Cold brew coffee: hot food fraud risk

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Help with supplier questionnaires

Use the information on this page to help answer questions in the Supplier Questionnaire for Food Fraud Advisors’ Vulnerability Assessment Tool:

Trading properties

Raw materials traded on specific properties are those for which the price paid for this raw material is based upon the content of water, dairy fat, nitrogen (protein), cocoa solids or some other key component. Answer ‘yes’ here if

  • the price your business pays is dependent on a specific property of this raw material or
  • if any of your suppliers’ suppliers price this material according to a specific property, even if your business pays a flat rate.

If you are unsure, speak to your purchasing officer.

Direct Sourcing

Answer ‘yes’ in the Supplier Questionnaire if this material or ingredient is manufactured, produced, grown or slaughtered by the business you work for.  For fish and seafood, answer ‘yes’ if your business is the first on-shore processing facility.  Answer ‘no’ if the material is purchased from a distributor or importer, trader, broker, wholesaler or retailer.

Complexity of supply chain

Do you consider the supply chain of this material to be complex and/or long?  An example of a short supply chain is wheat flour purchased directly from a flour mill that processes locally grown wheat.  A complex supply chain is one that involves many different businesses handling, processing, storing and transporting a product and its component parts.   Most imported materials have a long and complex supply chain.

Ease of access to material

Is the supply chain of a type that allows multiple points of entry for fraudulent material?  Entry points for fraudulent materials are points in the supply chain at which a motivated person could adulterate or dilute the material or substitute an inauthentic material in its place.  These points are most likely to be places where the material is blended, mixed, ground or where it is stored or transported in a manner that would allow a motivated person to easily gain access to the material.

Price

If the purchase price is more than USD20 per kg or USD20,000 per metric tonne or EUR18 per kg or 18,000 per metric tonne answer ‘yes very expensive’

If the purchase price is less than EUR600 or USD650 per metric tonne, answer ‘no’.

Size of market

Does the international market for this material have a large monetary value?  Materials that have markets with large monetary values are those that are traded in very large quantities across many countries or materials that are very expensive.  Tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar all have markets with a large monetary value.

Form of Ingredient

Answer ‘yes’ in the Supplier Questionnaire if this material or ingredient is sold to your customer in individual pieces which can be visually identified as such.  Examples include chickpeas, whole peppers, chicken wings, bananas, frozen berries, rolled oats, coffee beans, whole cloves.  If this material is sold as a powder, liquid, mince, paste, pre-mix, slurry or blend then answer ‘no’.

Special criteria

Answer ‘yes’ here if there are special criteria for this raw material or ingredient such as halal, organic, non-GMO, grass-fed, free-range or if there is a specific country of origin or grade of produce required for this material.

Availability of adulterants or substitutes

An example of a material that has easily available adulterants is honey, which can be adulterated with water, sugar syrups, invert syrups, all of which are easy to obtain.

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Supplier questionnaire: Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

What is my customer going to do with the information I provide?

The information that you provide about each ingredient or material will be used by your customer to complete a vulnerability assessment for each of the materials they purchase.  Vulnerability assessments for food fraud are performed to meet the requirements of food safety management systems and to help businesses manage financial risks from food fraud.  Your customer will put the your answers into Food Fraud Advisors’ Vulnerability Assessment Tool (BRC Method), which is a quick and easy way to calculate risks and produce auditor-friendly reports.

Why are some of the questions repeated?

The questions are based on recommendations provided by the British Retail Consortium in their document Understanding Vulnerability Assessment (2015) which requires some elements to be repeated.

May I share the Supplier Questionnaire with other businesses?

If your business has purchased a copy of the Vulnerability Assessment Tool, then you may send the Supplier Questionnaire to any business that supplies you with ingredients or materials.   If you are a supplier, then you may not share the questionnaire with other businesses or take it with you when you change jobs: the business that provided you with the questionnaire (your customer) owns the licence for the questionnaire. For complete terms and conditions click here.

Why are some of the questions ‘greyed-out’?

Questions 20 – 23 and 26 are greyed-out because they cannot be properly answered by a supplier. The answers to these questions relate only to the business that is performing the vulnerability assessment (the customer).  This is because the vulnerability is related to that business’ ability to detect fraud, not their suppliers’ ability to detect it.   Customers: if you need to know about your supplier’s ability to detect food fraud in their products, you should ask them to provide you with a full vulnerability assessment that they have complete themselves.  They will need to purchase their own copy of the Vulnerability Assessment Tool, the licence rules do not permit you to share it with your suppliers.  Suppliers are eligible for a 40% discount.  Contact us to request a discount code for your suppliers to use when they purchase the tool.

Is there a telephone number I can call for help and support with the questionnaire?

Please email support@foodfraudadvisors.com with your query, including your preferred contact details and geographical location (for time zone purposes). We will contact you by telephone or Skype or email an answer to you.

Something is not working properly, what should I do? 

If there is an error in the spreadsheet please contact us. We want the Vulnerability Assessment Tool and Supplier Questionnaire to be the best they can and value your feedback.

My security settings will not allow me to run macros, is this a problem?

If you wish to use the Supplier Questionnaire you will need to enable macros.

My supplier(s) only have Microsoft Excel 1997 – 2003, will this be a problem?

If your supplier is using Excel 1997 – 2009 (file extension .xls) or Excel for Mac 2000 – 2008 they will not be able to use the questionnaire.  You can contact us to request a free copy of a supplier questionnaire that is compatible with older versions of Excel.   Alternatively, create a compatible version yourself by performing a ‘Save As’ and choosing ‘Excel 97 – 2003 Workbook’ from the drop down list.  You will be shown a compatibility checker window.  The compatibility checker lists functions that will be lost if you proceed.  These lost functions relate to the look of the spreadsheet and will not prevent the supplier from answering questions: press ‘Continue’ to accept the loss of functions and create a file that your suppliers will be able to use.

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Food Fraud; news of emerging issues

The macadamia nut tree out the back of my place is flowering and is covered with long, yellow flower spikes.  In a few months it will be covered in nuts.  However, in world markets right now there is a shortage of whole macadamia nut kernels.  While stocks remain scarce, macadamia products are at increased risk of fraudulent activity.  Whole kernels are less likely than other macadamia products to be affected by fraudulent adulteration, however they are still at risk of fraudulent misrepresentation of country of origin, packing date and organic status.  Nut pieces, meals and flours are at risk of fraudulent adulteration with cheaper fillers and substitutes.

Here are some other interesting issues in food fraud or potential food fraud from the last month:

Are breadfruit products an emerging fraud risk?  Breadfruit is a starchy tropical fruit that grows on large trees in the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean. Breadfruit flour is said to have huge potential as a gluten-free product and breadfruit could become the next ‘superfood’, but right now demand outstrips supply and new trees take 3 to 5 years to bear fruit.  If the marketing gurus succeed in making breadfruit the next big thing, it will attract a premium price in North America and Europe and gluten-free breadfruit flour could become an attractive target for fraud.  I will be watching this product closely to see how the situation develops.

breadfruit
Is breadfruit destined to be the next ‘superfood’?

Hairy crabs, a delicacy in parts of China, are in season now, with crabs from particular lakes being very highly prized and even more expensive than their counterparts from other lakes.  A crab-marketing group representing hunters from Yangcheng lake designed an anti-counterfeiting system based on bar-code technology for Yangcheng crabs.  Unfortunately, they discovered that sellers of crabs from other lakes were forging the anti-fraud bar-codes.   I predict this type of fraud to increase over the next few years as consumers come to expect and trust anti-counterfeit measures applied to expensive consumer items.

For more on these topics plus expert analysis of the food fraud risk profiles of hundreds of other food materials check out our food fraud risk information database.

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Supplements, the last frontier?

The supplement industry received a wakeup call last year, particularly in the USA, after the New York attorney general commenced legal proceedings against 13 supplements manufacturers alleging that the supplements did not contain exactly what they should have contained.  The sampling and test methodology used to support the prosecution has been widely criticised, and the industry considers the results to be questionable at best.  Nevertheless, the issue of authenticity and adulteration has received extra attention among producers and users of supplements since then.

Some examples of recent supplement frauds have involved grape seed extract adulterated with peanut skins.  Ironically, grape seed extract has also been found to be an adulterant itself, with some cranberry products adulterated.  Within the supplements investigated by the New York attorney general, valerian was found to contain garlic and wild carrot, echinacea was found to contain rice and buttercup DNA while St Johns wort was alleged to contain DNA from a species of ornamental house plant.

What’s being done?  Well you won’t read about it in the press but there’s no question that large retailers, including those that were targeted by the New York attorney general, such as Walmart, Target, GNC and Walgreens, have reviewed and tightened up their purchasing contracts; supplement testing methodology has been reviewed and reputable supplement manufacturers are testing more of their ingredients more often.  And that’s great news for consumers.