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Investigating Susceptibility to Food Fraud

Updated 9 Feb 2026

Some foods are more susceptible than others to economically motivated adulteration, substitution and dilution.  Understanding the susceptibility of an ingredient or raw material type is an important part of every food fraud vulnerability assessment process.

A TWO-PART PROCESS

Susceptibility is investigated in two parts.

(1) General Susceptibility (is this type of food often affected by food fraud or not?)

You can estimate a food’s general susceptibility using publicly available information.

(2) Specific Susceptibility (is the food we purchase likely to be affected by food fraud?)

The specific food fraud attributes depend on your supply chain, management of the supply chain and testing and auditing activities.

STEP 1. GENERAL SUSCEPTIBILITY

To investigate the general susceptibility of a food or ingredient to food fraud, use publicly available information about incidences of fraud that have occurred in the past and that might occur in the future.

There are a few different ways to access information about previous incidents and emerging issues with a raw material type, as shown below.

1. Online databases – access to historical data:

A food fraud database provides a way to access historical information about food fraud.

A food fraud database is a collection of information about food fraud incidents and food fraud risks. There are a number of free and paid databases operated by governments, not-for-profits and private companies available worldwide.  The type of data varies from database to database, as does the cost and the features.  For a current list of food fraud databases, check out our post Food Fraud Databases Compared.

2. Email alerts via subscription service:

Email services provide near-to-real-time information about food fraud incidents as they occur. This can be a good way to keep on top of developing food fraud risks.   Below is a list of email subscriptions that can provide information about food fraud.

  • Food Forensics, a laboratory located in United Kingdom, offer a monthly horizon scanning risk newsletter to members in the United Kingdom.
  • FoodChainID Horizon Scan is a paid subscription service that provides alerts on adulteration and fraud, as well as food safety contamination events (global).
  • Some trade associations provide email services to members.
  • The Rotten Apple, by Karen Constable (of Food Fraud Advisors), is a weekly newsletter that includes trends and analysis as well as weekly food fraud incident reports.
  • Government-run food safety and food regulatory bodies in some jurisdictions send emails to interested parties.  Contact your local authority for more information.

3.  Direct intelligence:

Direct intelligence is another means of gathering information about the occurrence of food fraud for a given food or ingredient.

  • Information can be obtained by asking law enforcement officials and government departments.
  • Suppliers can provide information about their material types.
  • Trade associations can be approached for information on food fraud and emerging issues.
  • Conferences and webinars about food fraud and food defence are held regularly and these can be a good source of information.

STEP 2. SPECIFIC SUSCEPTIBILITY

In step one you considered the general likelihood of food fraud occurring for the food or ingredient you are assessing.

In step two you must consider the characteristics of your specific material as it is purchased by your food business.

Characteristics that should be considered include those associated with your supply chain, purchasing policies and the format of the material, for example whether it is a powder or liquid or solid.

Each characteristic should be considered with regards to how it could affect the degree to which a person may be motivated to fraudulently adulterate the material and how it could allow a person to:

a) gain access to the material,

b) commit fraud by adulterating, substituting or diluting the material or

c) avoid detection.

To ensure that all relevant characteristics are considered, it is best to use a checklist

Checklists help to ensure that all relevant information has been considered.

You can create your own checklist or use a checklist prepared by experts such as those found in a proprietary Vulnerability Assessment Tool.

There are a number of fraud assessment tools available on-line, with differing degrees of usefulness (some are really annoying to use!).  The most comprehensive checklist for food fraud vulnerability assessments can be found in Food Fraud Advisors’ Vulnerability Assessment Tools.

Need more help?  Get easy-to-use, comprehensive downloadable templates in our online training course.

Visit our training academy today

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How to do a Vulnerability Assessment for Storage and Distribution

From the desk of Karen Constable, our Principal Consultant

The other day, a frustrated food safety manager wrote to me, wanting help to figure out how to do a food fraud vulnerability assessment for storage and distribution (BRCGS Issue 4).

It’s such a tricky one, because storage and distribution (S & D) facilities have so little direct control over product choices.  And the BRC standard is so wordy!

The good news is that when BRC first added product fraud to their storage and distribution standard in 2018 (Issue 3), they wrote a position paper that attempted to provide some guidance.

Even though Issue 4 is a bit different to Issue 3, the guidance in the position paper is still useful.

Here’s just a small portion of guidance from BRC Position Paper:

“The Standard does not define the exact process that the company must follow when completing the vulnerability assessment;however, it is likely to incorporate the following steps:

  • draw up a list of products and services and the controls that are already in operation (e.g. approval of suppliers by customers, pre-packaged products purchased)
  • consider any relevant information regarding potential fraud for each product and service
  • complete a risk assessment on the vulnerability of the products.

The output of the vulnerability assessment is usually a ranking or scoring of the materials to identify those which need additional controls. The ranking and actions required could, for example, be as follows:

  • Very high – a high-profile product with recent reports of adulteration or substitution published by regulatory authorities. Action or monitoring is required to ensure that only genuine materials are purchased.
  • High – a high-profile product that provides an attractive target for potential substitution or adulteration. Some action and/or monitoring is required to ensure that only genuine materials are purchased.
  • Low – this product is unlikely to be a target for substitution or adulteration. However, a re-assessment may be necessary if new information becomes available.
  • Negligible – no further action is required as the product is extremely unlikely to be a target for fraud.”

 

There’s more in the position paper, which you can read or download from the BRC Website: https://www.brcgs.com/media/1055426/sd308-position-statement-accommodating-the-requirements-of-gfsi-benchmark-72-into-issue-3-v2-12082019.pdf

If you are completely new to vulnerability assessments, we have step-by-step instructions on our website, which might help a little if you haven’t seen it yet.  Plus, our on-demand, online food fraud training might also help.  Although both of these resources were created primarily for food manufacturers the concepts of vulnerability assessments also apply to S & D facilities.

I can also assist with custom one-on-one consulting, guidance/feedback or custom templates if you need.   Just get in touch and we can hop on a phone call to discuss.

Regards,

Karen Constable

Food Fraud Advisors

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How To Do a Vulnerability Assessment for Food Fraud

Updated 30th December 2022

What is a vulnerability assessment?

 

A vulnerability assessment is a risk-assessment-style evaluation of a food’s vulnerability to food fraud.

A food fraud vulnerability assessment is a documented assessment that identifies vulnerabilities to food fraud and explains how those vulnerabilities were identified.

Vulnerability assessments are also done to assess the threat of a malicious attack on food.  Malicious attacks include attacks conducted for extortion, ideological reasons or terrorism. We call these issues of food defense. To learn more about vulnerability assessments for food defense (intentional adulteration), click here.

Why ‘vulnerability’ and not ‘risk’? 

 

  • A risk is something that has occurred before and will occur again. A risk can be quantified using existing data.
  • A vulnerability is a weakness that can be exploited.  A vulnerability can lead to a risk.

Food fraud is difficult to estimate and quantify, so we use the word vulnerability rather than risk.

Why do a vulnerability assessment?

 

  1. To protect consumers: Food that is vulnerable to food fraud presents significant risks to consumers.  Food that is adulterated or diluted   [Read more…]

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Interpol and Food Fraud; Celebrating 10 Years of Operation Opson

Operation Opson is a joint activity of Interpol and Eurpol that targets counterfeit and sub-standard food and beverages.

This year marks the tenth iteration of Operation Opson.

Operation Opson X ran from December 2020 to June 2021 in 72 countries. Food and drinks worth €53.8 M were seized and 663 arrest warrants were issued.  Honey, beverages and horsemeat were areas of focus for this operation.  You can find the official Europol press release here.

Honey

Authorities performed 495 checks on honey samples as part of Opson X.  Samples were obtained from all along the supply chain, including from the farmgate, wholesalers, distributors and retailers. Most of the checks aimed to detect added sugars or corn syrup in the honey.  Of the 495 checks, 7% were found to be non-compliant and 51,000 kg of honey was seized.

Beverages

During Opson X, the most problematic beverages were wine and vodka.  A total of 1.7 M liters of alcoholic beverages were seized by authorities.  For wine, fraudulent bottling and labeling was a notable problem, with wine bottling operation(s) in Italy allegedly applying labels that misrepresented the geographical origin of the wine. In Spain, whisky with added colorant was found.  The colorant was said to have been added to enhance the perceived quality of the product.

Horsemeat

Horsemeat and the use of unapproved horsemeat for human food continues to be a focus for food fraud enforcement in Europe.  During Opson X, authorities uncovered sophisticated operations in which horses that were not approved for human consumption were being traded across international borders with false documents.  Investigations are continuing.

Other Meat

A survey of meat products in Germany found that 3% of samples (n = 264) were affected by species substitution, that is, the meat contained species that were not declared on the label. Source: Food Safety News

Unsafe and Fraudulent Seafood

Spanish and Portugese authorities identified illegal fishing of bivalve seafood such as clams in a wide-ranging investigation.  The seafood was harvested illegally and was not processed, handled or labeled properly, resulting in potential food safety issues.  At least 12 fishing vessels were implicated.

Food Supplements

In this iteration of Operation Opson, food supplements and additives were the second most seized food type, by quantity, after alcoholic beverages.  At the time of writing no details of such seizures are available.

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2019; the year in review

Happy New Year and welcome to 2020.  Last year included many pleasing, positive developments in food fraud prevention.  More and more people from within the international food industry are becoming aware of the prevalence of food fraud and becoming better educated about the risks it poses to consumers and businesses.  There were new developments in technology and more enforcement activities, plus awareness has continued to spread to peripheral industries and unconventional marketplaces.   Food Fraud Advisors and our sister company Authentic Food launched new products and continued to serve our growing customer community across the globe.  Thank you for your support in 2019.  I look forward to serving you in 2020.

Karen Constable, Principal Consultant, Food Fraud Advisors

Better assessments and tests

Food safety professionals are becoming more comfortable with performing food fraud vulnerability assessments and I have seen the quality of assessments improve markedly in the past year.  Food laboratories are also gaining more expertise in food authenticity testing.  Better test methods have been developed, and this is helping the labs to do their jobs more easily,  but for me I think the most important thing is that laboratory sales personnel are becoming better at understanding the needs of their food business customers when it comes to food fraud detection.

Food testing labs have better tools to meet the needs of their food industry customers

 

New food fraud prevention strategies

The past year saw significant increases in proactive prevention initiatives that extend beyond typical anti-counterfeit tools.  As an example, a famous Scottish salmon brand has recently implemented a chemical ‘fingerprint’ system to allow them to pursue suppliers of inauthentic product across their growing global supply chain.  BeefLedger is a new provenance verification product, which supports Australian beef exporters through the use of blockchain technology.

International enforcement

In India, there has been an ongoing effort by the media to publicise food adulteration problems in that country.  In response, government authorities are tackling the problem head on, with the aim of increasing trust in the food supply.  Indian news outlets feature stories of seizures and shutdowns of illegal food outlets on an almost daily basis.  Tea, spices, ghee, jaggery, cooking oil and milk are often affected.  The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has promised to reimburse the cost of food fraud testing for consumer samples tested by credible consumer organisations.

The food crime unit in the UK benefitted from more funding last year, which increased its investigative capacity and its ability to train people in other agencies on food fraud awareness and intelligence handling.

In Europe there appears to be a growing acceptance that some organised crime groups are actively choosing to include food fraud operations within their money-making portfolios.  Although this type of operation may not be the norm, it does occur and acknowledgement of the problem is an important step in the fight to intercept and control such crimes.

Operation Opson, a joint operation between Interpol, Europol and national law enforcement agencies was run again in 2019, for the eighth year.  Operation Opson sees fraudulent food, drink and supplements investigated, located and seized by authorities across the globe, from sub-Saharan Africa to South America.  The categories of items seized most often in 2019 were illicit alcohol, cereals (grains) and condiments.  This year also included targeted actions that focussed on organic foods, coffee and 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP), an illegal fat-burning supplement that has caused multiple fatalities in recently years.

Grain was the second most-seized food type in Operation Opson VIII

 

In the USA, enforcement activities are also on the rise.  In 2019 there were a number of high profile prosecutions of business owners in the seafood, beef and pet-food industries.  The implementation of the Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) has improved the standard of knowledge about food safety hazards and controls across the food industry in that country.  Also in 2019, many USA food companies were required to meet the International Adulteration (IA) rule of FSMA for the first time.  The rule is designed to prevent malicious threats to public health from food adulteration.  While the IA rule is not technically related to food fraud, it has made an important contribution to the concept of food safety.  As the new decade unfolds, I predict we will continue to expand our understanding of food safety; from our historical focus on natural and accidental contaminants to wider awareness of the risks posed by deliberate, human-mediated hazards.

Marketplace improvements

The good news continues, with 2019 witnessing a small but subtle shift in the willingness of online marketplace owners to talk about the problem of counterfeit goods in general, and counterfeit foods, drinks and supplements in particular.  There has been a change in the discourse around counterfeit products which increasingly addresses safety issues in addition to financial costs.  While many consumers and retailers continue to tolerate, or even seek out, counterfeit fashion items, more businesses are becoming aware of the prevalence of unsafe counterfeit supplements, foods and electronic components in online marketplaces.  And as awareness grows, I expect enforcement and preventive activities to follow; resulting in gradual improvements to the way we source and supply goods online.

Beyond food and drink

The food industry’s anti-fraud crusade has spilled over into related industries, including agricultural chemicals and packaging materials.  These two global heavy-weights are benefitting from the food industry’s food fraud awareness and prevention strategies of recent years.  As an example, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) included raw material fraud prevention activities in its most recent Packaging Materials Standard.   In pesticides, Operation Silver Axe resulted in the seizure of 550 tonnes of illegal or counterfeit pesticides across Europe.

The packaging materials industry has benefitted from lessons learned in food fraud prevention

Our year in review

Last year Food Fraud Advisors passed the 2000 downloads milestone for our tools and templates.  We continue to receive wonderful feedback and rave reviews for  our tools, templates and downloads.

We have customers in 48 countries, from large multinational food conglomerates to small start-ups, and everything in between.  While most are food manufacturers, this year we have had more customers from businesses peripheral to food production, such as brokers, logistics businesses and packaging manufacturers.  Students and consultants continue to make up a small but significant proportion of our online learning community.

 

New products

With our sister company, Authentic Food, we developed and launched the Intentional Adulteration Vulnerability Assessment Tool in June.  It filled an important gap for businesses in the USA, as there are few resources to help meet the requirements of the new FSMA IA rules and regulations.

Our vulnerability assessment tool for packaging materials was launched in November.  This tool is designed specifically to meet the requirements of BRC Packaging Materials Issue 6 which, for the first time, includes requirements to address food-fraud-like issues within the supply chain of packaging materials.  Purchasers of the packaging vulnerability assessment tool also receive a free threat assessment tool that generates a product defense plan for site security and product safety.

Our free Food Fraud Risk Information Database continues to grow.  It currently contains more than sixty five thousand words.

My favourite thing about 2019 was having the opportunity to interact with so many intelligent and resourceful food safety professionals from all over the world, as we work together to make our food supply safer for everyone.   I look forward to more of the same this year.