Food Fraud Advisors

You are here: Home / Archives for Adulteration

by

This is Food Fraud

Food fraud in pictures

We’ve come a long way with food fraud awareness since I started working on the subject in 2015. More and more food industry people now recognise that food fraud is a genuine threat to the safety and integrity of our food supply.

But few of us have actually seen food fraud up close. Part of the problem, of course, is that food fraud, by its very nature, is hard to spot.

This week, I’m sharing my collection of favourite food fraud images, from around the globe and across the decades, starting with turmeric extract.

Turmeric extract

No alternative text description for this image
Fig. 1. Two samples of turmeric extract side by side. The sample on the right contains about 25% curcuminoids. The sample on the left has been diluted with cornstarch and contains about 10% curcuminoids. Image: Blake Ebersole via LinkedIn.

 

Figure 1 shows a simulated “fraud” which demonstrates dilution-type fraud in turmeric extract. The sample on the right contains about 25% curcuminoids. The sample on the left has been diluted with cornstarch and contains about 10% curcuminoids.

Dilution fraud occurs when a food is diluted with material that costs less than the food to increase profits. Examples include fruit juice, milk or wine adulterated with water and sawdust added to tea powder.

Common fillers for botanical extracts are maltodextrin, starches and other materials with a cellulose base, such as carboxymethylcellulose.

Fillers and flow agents are added legitimately to botanical extracts like turmeric extract to achieve a flowable powder. However, some suppliers add more filler than needed, and this allows them to sell the same quantity of the pure extract for a higher price.

There are no legal definitions for botanical extract purity in many jurisdictions, so the amount of filler or flow agent is not regulated. If the concentration of filler or flow agent is not specified and checked by purchasers upon receipt, then the supplier may be tempted to add too much.

Purchasers of botanical extracts use visual checks, HPTLC and colour specifications as an ‘early warning signal’ when receiving material. Extracts that have a lighter colour than expected warrant further investigation, although it’s worth noting that turmeric is also vulnerable to adulteration with colourants such as metanil yellow and lead chromate.

Source: Turmeric Extract | Blake Ebersole

Saffron

diagram, engineering drawing
Fig. 2. Samples of saffron purchased from retail stores in the Netherlands, and exposed to water. One sample appears genuine, the other three indicate fraud. Image: Devi M Krishna via LinkedIn

 

Figure 2 shows a simple authenticity indicator test for saffron (Crocus sativus L.), using water. The test provides a visual indication of potential adulteration or substitution and can be used to decide which samples require further investigation.

When water is added, real saffron releases a dark golden colour over a period of a few seconds while maintaining intact stigmas. Suspicious samples release significant quantities of colour in less than 1 second, lose their structure and show evidence of non-stigma materials.

In this test, conducted by students in a food fraud course at Wageningen University on samples purchased from local stores, three of the four samples appeared inauthentic, including the most expensive samples.

Sample 3 (blue circle) was confirmed to be safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), which is substituted for, or used to adulterate, saffron, due to its similar appearance. The photographer did not share which was the genuine sample.

No alternative text description for this image
Fig. 3. Saffron flower (Crocus sativus L.) showing the stigma. Image credit: Lorenzo Lamonica.

 

Source: Saffron Test | Devi M Krishna

Paprika

Paprika powders containing added colourants.
Fig. 4. Paprika powders containing added colourants Sudan 1 & IV (left) and annato (right). Image: Tarantelli, Sheriden (2016)

 

Figure 4 shows adulteration-type fraud in two paprika products imported to the United States. The sample on the left contained very high levels of the oil-soluble dyes Sudan I and Sudan IV. The sample on the right contained the natural colour annatto (E160b).

These samples were tested by the New York State Food Lab in 2014.

Adulteration-type fraud is when something is added to food to increase its apparent value without being declared to the purchaser. Adulterants can be unsafe for consumers and often conceal quality defects. Examples include textile dyes added to spices to make them appear fresh and flavoursome, and melamine powder added to milk to boost its apparent protein content.

Sudan dyes are textile dyes which are carcinogenic and not approved for use in food. In 2024, there were 8 notifications for Sudan dyes in foods imported to the European Union. The foods included curry powder, chilli powder, palm oil, sumac powder and cheddar cheese powder.

Adulteration with unapproved dyes sometimes accompanies another type of food fraud in paprika: dilution or substitution with ‘spent paprika’.

Spent paprika is a dull fibrous material left over after paprika oleoresin – the coloured and flavoured part of paprika spice – has been extracted from the fruit (Capsicum annuum L). Paprika oleoresin has a high value and is used legally as a natural colouring agent in cheese, juices, sweets and sauces.

When spent paprika is added to whole paprika, or used in place of whole paprika, the resulting mix has a dull colour. Fraudsters then add illegal colourants such as Sudan dyes to the mixture to make it appear genuine.

diagram
Fig 5. Food laboratory Bia Analytical shared this image in a post about spent paprika, saying spent paprika is often coloured with harmful and illegal dyes like Sudan I, II, III, IV or Para Red. Image: Bia Analytical, via LinkedIn

 

Sources:

Tarantelli T., Sheriden R. (2016) Toxic Industrial Colorants found in Imported Foods. Available online at: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/industrial-dye-presentation-12-11-2015/60160214

Bia Analytical (2025) Why is Spent Paprika Not Paprika. LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bia-analytical_adulterate-foodfraud-foodadulteration-activity-7313487808575250433-clM7/

Oregano

Dried oregano leaves are pictured next to dried cistus, olive and myrtle leaves, showing the similarities between the products.
Fig 6. Dried oregano leaves look a lot like other dried leaves. Image: Elliott, C. (2016) Addressing complex and critical food integrity issues using the latest analytical technologies [webinar]

Figure 6 shows the similarities between dried oregano and other leaves used to dilute it.

Oregano is the herb most often affected by food fraud, and there have been several high-profile cases of consumer groups revealing food fraud in oregano, including in the United Kingdom in 2015, Australia in 2016 and the United States in 2017.

In the Australian tests, fewer than half of the 12 samples purchased from retail outlets were pure oregano. The others contained between 10 and 90 percent leaves from other plants, including olive leaves and sumac leaves. Tests in the United Kingdom and the United States of America showed adulteration in around one-third of samples.

Have things improved with oregano in the decade since?

Unfortunately, they have not. In 2020, oregano imported to Europe from Turkiye was found to contain olive leaves. Further testing revealed one-quarter of samples were affected. Two of the samples contained no oregano at all.

In 2021, the European Commission tested 1,885 samples of spices and herbs and rated oregano the worst performer for food fraud, with 48 percent of approximately 300 oregano samples affected by adulteration, mostly with olive leaves.

And in 2024, the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency found 13 percent of 30 samples of oregano to contain leaves other than oregano, mostly olive leaves, at levels of up to 25 percent.

Comment

Food fraud affects many types of food and drink, but I only had images of herbs, spices and botanicals in my collection. That’s not a coincidence. Herbs, spices and botanicals are some of the worst-affected foods for food fraud.

I would have loved to have shown you photographs of food fraud in other commonly affected commodities such as seafood, honey, olive oil and dairy foods, but unfortunately, fraud-affected versions of these foods look almost identical to the real thing, and so photographs are both rare and unhelpful.

Side by side images of adulterated milk and pure milk. The two images look identical.
Fig. 7 Food fraud is usually impossible to see. Image by Ivan Pergasi on Unsplash used for illustration purposes only.

 

Read more: 🍏Saffron Fraud | Issue 31 | The Rotten Apple🍏

This article was originally published at The Rotten Apple – a weekly newsletter for food professionals.

by

Undercover honey investigators

I previously wrote about how my daughter, who loves honey and eats a lot of it here in Australia, complained that all the honey she tasted while travelling in Europe had no flavour, telling me it tasted like sugar water.

A German news outlet has published a documentary about their investigations into honey fraud in Europe and it certainly aligns with my daughter’s “sugar water” opinion.

While the video begins with all the information we have come to expect from honey fraud stories, such as the differences between various test methods and regulatory standards, things soon get more interesting.

Journalists set up their own fake honey business, visit honey traders and processors with hidden cameras, and even send people to China to collect evidence of fraudulent practices.

“The syrup really passes the NMR test?” asks an undercover investigator of a Chinese syrup supplier. The answer is simple: “Yes”.

The journalists even make their own fake honey using special syrups designed to trick the nuclear magnetic resonance test (NMR) widely used in Europe for honey authentication. And they succeed: a blend of authentic honey and 20% special syrup was identified in the NMR test as authentic. Blends made with ordinary syrups were flagged as inauthentic.

“The math is simple”, an anonymous German honey trader tells them, “If I add 20% syrup to my honey, my margin would almost double. You have no chance against such competitors.”

For English subtitles, click CC on the YouTube display to activate captions, then in Settings choose ‘Subtitles’, then ‘Auto-translate’, then ‘English.

This article was originally published at The Rotten Apple – a weekly newsletter for food professionals

by

Olive Oil Fraud Update – Is the Crisis Over?

When it comes to fraud-vulnerable foods, olive oil is a rockstar.

When Food Fraud Advisors began in 2015, olive oil was considered one of the most fraud-affected foods on earth, with reports of fraud dating back to the first century AD.

And then things got worse – much worse – for olive production and fraud rates in olive oil skyrocketed.

Olive groves in some of Europe’s major growing areas were decimated by the bacterial disease Xylella fastidiosa, which infects the xylem of olive trees and other trees. The disease, which is native to the Americas, has a mortality rate of up to 100% in susceptible olive cultivars. It is spread by insects that feed on sap, such as the meadow spittlebug (Philaenus spumarius).

Since its discovery in Italy in 2013, more than 21 million olive trees have been destroyed by the disease in Southern Italy, devastating local olive oil production.

Puglia in Italy once produced half of Italy’s olive oil and was home to 60 million of olive trees, many of which were hundreds of years old but has lost 21 million trees to Xylella fastidiosa since 2013.

 

In addition to tree losses from Xylella fastidiosa, droughts and heatwaves in the 2022-2023 season affected key growing areas in Spain, the world’s largest producer, causing harvest volumes to plummet. Similar losses were experienced in Morocco, after annual production dropped to less than half of 2021 levels following two years of drought in the country.

However, things may finally be looking up for olive production and for olive oil. The olive oil industry has been predicting strong harvests and a return to more typical prices for oils since early 2025.

Wholesale commodity prices are currently at just 65 percent of their all-time high, which was reached in January 2024.

Wholesale commodity prices in July 2025 are just 65 percent of their all-time high in January 2024. Image: YCharts, with data from the International Monetary Fund (https://ycharts.com/indicators/olive_oil_price)

 

Frauds in olive oil include false claims about geographical origin, ‘extra virgin’ status and ‘organic’ (bio) status, counterfeiting of premium brands, theft of oil, theft of olives, clandestine manufacturing, blending with undeclared oils, replacement with other oils and addition of colourants.

 

The 2024 olive oil crisis

In 2024, I captured an unprecedented number of reports of olive oil fraud in public media, more than double any previous year since 2015. There were 15 incident reports in 2023 and more than double that number in 2024. In 2025, the numbers are trending back towards 2023 levels, with 7 incidents recorded in the first half of the year.

While an increased number of media reports does not necessarily mean more fraud, the fact that both wholesale and retail prices were very high in 2024, and significant enforcement operations were reported frequently, gives me confidence that the increased number of reports is a true reflection of more fraud activity.

 

An unscientific tally of food fraud incidents, 2015 – 2025, by the author, with the dotted region denoting an extrapolated count for 2025.

 

Note: the counts I’ve described are indicative at best because they only capture incidents and survey results that have been reported by mainstream media outlets or scientific journals, AND discovered by me and my software systems during my weekly searches for food fraud intelligence.

Did we see the crisis coming?

In 2022, olive oil was predicted to become 25 percent more expensive due to droughts in the main olive-growing areas of Europe. However, the predictions fell short and prices rose by significantly more than that, more than doubling between 2022 and 2024.

In October 2023, I warned that due to the shortage of olives in Europe, non-European-grown oils could be fraudulently misrepresented as European oils.

Olives in Europe became so expensive and scarce in 2023 and 2024 that criminals were chainsawing off fruit-laden branches of olive trees, and even taking whole olive trees from orchards by night. Some growers resorted to microchipping their trees in response to the spate of thefts.

Spanish law enforcement agencies responded to the crisis by undertaking 300 different operations in olive growing areas in 2023, stopping vehicles full of stolen fruit, raiding oil mills, and arresting mill operators who were processing stolen fruit.

In Greece, the government warned consumers of increased fraud risks and recommended they only buy oil from reputable vendors.

Is the crisis over?

The most recent European harvest was strong, 12% higher than the five-year average, due to favourable growing conditions in key European growing regions.

In Spain, which accounts for 50 percent of global olive oil production, the most recent crop was almost double what was grown in the 2022-2023 season.

Wholesale prices began falling for consumer olive oils earlier this year and a spokesperson for a major Spanish olive oil supplier said in February 2025 that the price drops could be expected to reach supermarket shelves with a three-month lag.

While various pests and diseases are still a risk to olive trees that are stressed by climate change, Xylella fastidiosa is currently contained in Europe. The European Commission has declared the outbreak in Puglia closed.

Portuguese and Spanish outbreaks are similarly declared over, while in Corsica (France) the disease is considered to be contained. Countries continue to monitor for the presence of the disease.

The Xylella fastidiosa containment zone of Puglia, Italy, depicted in orange. The buffer zone (zona cuscinetto) is blue. Source: European Commission (https://food.ec.europa.eu/plants/plant-health-and-biosecurity/plant-health-rules/control-measures/xylella-fastidiosa/latest-developments-xylella-fastidiosa-eu-territory_en)

 

Unexpectedly, some groves that were thought to have been completely destroyed by Xylella fastidiosa have recovered, with a complete restoration of the crown of trees observed in 2024 in some areas of Italy, even among susceptible cultivars. The recovery phenomenon has been observed in young, old and even centennial groves, with some trees once again yielding commercial quantities of fruit.

In the past year, Greek production has rebounded significantly, with the most recent harvest almost double that of the previous year, which was the worst many had seen.

“Last year’s [Greek growing season] was probably the worst period I’ve seen in 20 years,” Prokopios Magiatis, olive production scientist at the University of Athens, who says this year is significantly better.

But the longer-term outlook remains challenging due to our rapidly warming climate.

In Greece, 130,000 olive trees were lost to fires in Evros in 2023, and wildfire burned 11,000 acres of olive orchards in 2024.

Climate change is causing rains to fall at the wrong time of year, leaving the trees with little moisture during winter. Warm winters also cause havoc with the trees’ reproductive cycles – if the nights do not get cold enough, the trees don’t enter the winter dormancy that helps them prepare for the following season.

In 2023, the European Union’s largest wildfire on record burnt olive groves near Alexandroupolis, Greece. Photo: Konstantinos Tsakalidis (via The Greek Herald,https://greekherald.com.au/news/greece-wildfires-burn-60-percent-of-evros-olive-groves/)

 

So, although some industry sources report things are looking up for olive production in Europe in 2025, other sources say extreme heat during flowering and the first fruit set period has already imperiled next season’s crop in some parts of Spain. The Andalusian region of Spain is predicted to have a small harvest for 2025-2026, due to heavy pest pressure, including praying olive blight.

And although Turkiye’s olive industry had a bumper season in 2024-2025, this year’s harvest is predicted to be just 60% of last year’s.

What about olive oil’s food fraud vulnerability?

As supplies of oil improve and prices ease, the motivating factors behind food fraud decrease – or to put it another way, when olives and their oils are not outrageously expensive, it’s less profitable for criminals to fake them, steal them and engage in illegal trading.

An increased focus by authorities in Spain and Italy has likely also caused some criminals to think twice about olive oil crime. In the coming months, I’m expecting to see many more reports of convictions and sentencing for crimes committed in 2021 and 2022, as investigations are brought before the courts in Europe.

In June 2025, four people were sentenced to prison in Spain for their roles in a multi-year-long fraud in which low-quality oils and sunflower oils were sold as extra virgin and organic olive oils, using a false geographical origin in the brand name. The crimes were discovered in 2021.

But while things are probably going to be slightly less crazy for olive oil fraud in the second half of this year and into 2026, I still consider olive oil to be particularly vulnerable to food fraud, because there has been no change to the characteristics that have made it a target since the earliest days of agriculture.

The oil is valuable, has multiple grades and variations that are difficult for most consumers to differentiate, carries significant price premiums for organic versions and certain provenances, and has a relatively short shelf life compared to other edible oils. Its liquid form makes it easy to dilute with cheaper oils, with the large price differential making such dilutions very profitable and the addition of colourants making it hard to detect without expensive analytical tests.

There is also a large pool of independent eateries and grocers in Europe which are sometimes willing to purchase from informal supply chains. Together, these characteristics make olive oil particularly vulnerable to food fraud.

Takeaways for food professionals and consumers

If you or your business purchases olive oil, limit your risk of purchasing fraud-affected oil by:

  • purchasing from reputable vendors and authorised stockists – avoid online stores, markets, street vendors, small independent outlets and anonymous sellers which are more likely to sell counterfeits and products from unauthorised or grey market sources;
  • purchasing premium brands, which are more likely to tightly control their supply chains;
  • paying attention to the taste and aroma of the oil and informing the vendor of any defects.

In short: 🍏 Olive oil has been vulnerable to food fraud since ancient times 🍏 Experts have been warning of impending supply problems for olive oil due to the climate crisis since 2016 🍏 Tree diseases decimated harvests in major olive growing regions, and drought also had a severe impact on the 2022-2023 harvest, precipitating huge price increases for olive oils in 2023 and 2024 🍏 Reports of olive oil fraud were significantly more numerous in 2023 and 2024 compared to previous years 🍏 Harvests have recovered somewhat, although threats from climate change remain 🍏 Fraud activity and the number of reports of fraud in olive oil is expected to be significantly lower in 2025 compared to 2024, however olive oil remains highly vulnerable to food fraud 🍏

Sources: Links to all sources are hyperlinked within the text.

🔹 Many of the sources used for this article were discovered using iComplai’s AI-powered food fraud risk prediction system 🔹

This post originally appeared in The Rotten Apple.

by

Paprika, Chilli Powder and Sudan Dye Contamination

Can paprika and chilli powder be “too red”?

This post was originally published in The Rotten Apple newsletter.

 

In 2016 an inspector from the New York State (NYS), Department of Agriculture and Markets visited a food market looking for suspicious spices. There had been a spate of adulteration incidents with paprika and related spices such as chilli powder and curry powder internationally and the New York authorities were surveying local supplies.

The inspector was Audrey, a colleague of Tom Tarantelli, now retired. Tom recently sent me an intriguing photograph of some products from the same brand that Audrey spotted that day.

In one store, Audrey noticed some packages of paprika that looked “too red”. This was, perhaps, a sign the paprika had been adulterated with unauthorised colourants.

She purchased the paprika and took it back to the lab for testing.  It was, indeed adulterated. Tom told me they found 2,400 ppm Sudan 4 and 850 ppm Sudan 1 in the product. It was one of the highest concentrations of Sudan 4 ever found, as high as the worst European case that had been reported up to that time.

The results were so remarkable that Tom purchased more packages to keep. “Realizing this product would be thrown away, I went to the store and obtained more. Such a great sample!” Tom told me.

That was in 2016, eight years ago.  Today, the products Tarantelli purchased are still a brightly-hued, fresh-looking red.

Paprika samples purchased in 2016 retained their “too red” colour for almost 8 years. This photograph was taken in December 2023. Paprika from this brand contained very high concentrations of the illegal, carcinogenic dyes, Sudan I and Sudan IV. Photograph: Thomas Tarantelli

 

The photograph above was taken just a few months ago, more than seven years after the samples were purchased. The colour is bright. Pure paprika, on the other hand, loses its red colour over time and ages to a dull brownish colour.

This is the challenge for spice traders: old paprika doesn’t have an attractive colour. Dull-coloured paprika is perceived to be of lower quality and to have less flavour, and therefore must be sold for a lower price.

One solution is for traders to add colouring agents to their wares. Since pure spices are not allowed to contain even food-grade colourants, the traders do not bother to use colourants that are safe or legal. Instead, they use colourants that are cheap, easy to obtain and easy to handle.

Sudan dyes seem to be popular with unethical spice traders who want to enhance the colour of the spices they sell. The dyes are industrial colouring agents, much cheaper than food-grade colours, and sold for use in industrial oils, waxes and shoe polish. Sudan I has an orange colour and  Sudan IV is a blueish red. Sudan dyes have been found in paprika, chilli powder and curry powder many times over the past decade. They are also a common adulterant in unrefined palm oil, which has a bright red colour when fresh.

Sudan dye adulteration was first detected in food in 2003, and was the cause of a huge recall in the United Kingdom in 2005, which affected 570 foods. Alerts and notifications for Sudan dye contamination continue to this day. Last month Italian authorities rejected palm oil from Ivory Coast because it contained Sudan 3 and Sudan 4 dyes and German authorities recalled cheddar cheese powder from Syria which contained multiple Sudan dyes.

There were 39 notifications for Sudan dyes in foods between 2014 and 2024 in the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), and 12 in the US FDA Import Alerts records. Many of the alerts are for adulterated palm oil, but in Europe, paprika, seasoning and spice blends, barbeque rub, chilli pepper, sumac and sweet and sour sauce were also affected. In America, barbeque flavoured snacks were affected in addition to palm oil.

FT-NIR spectra of a pure sample of paprika and the same sample after adulteration with Sudan II, III, IV and Congo red at 5 % (w/w). Source: Castell, et. al (2024)

 

The incident in 2016 wasn’t the only time Tarantelli and his colleagues found Sudan dyes in spices. In fact, they found sixteen commercially available spices containing such dyes in less than two years. The spices included turmeric, curry powder, malathy and chilli powder in addition to paprika.

Chemists from the New York State (NYS), Department of Agriculture and Markets found Sudan dyes in sixteen samples in less than two years. Source: Thomas Tarantelli in Food Safety Tech (2017)

 

The New York State inspectors reported their results to the US FDA, prompting a series of recalls. Unfortunately, the recalls were classed as less serious Class 2 recalls because of the assumption that spices like paprika are consumed in only small quantities.

However, as Tarantelli pointed out in an article he wrote in Food Safety Tech in 2017, assumptions about serving sizes can be wrong. In fact, when he compared the amount of spice consumed by some ethnic groups to the reference serving size used by the FDA they were 20 times higher.

“In the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 21, the serving size per meal for spice is referenced as ½ gram. However, certain ethnic groups may consume a daily amount of 20 grams of spice per person.”

Takeaways for food safety professionals

  • Foods that appear fresher, tastier or of better quality when their colour is more intense are vulnerable to adulteration with undeclared colourants.
  • Red-coloured foods such as paprika, chilli powder and palm kernel oil are sometimes adulterated with Sudan dyes to enhance their colour and increase their apparent value.
  • Sudan dyes are not approved for use in food, they are industrial dyes with carcinogenic properties.
  • Despite a long history of recalls, safety alerts and import alerts for Sudan dye adulteration, food fraud perpetrators continue to adulterate foods with this dangerous group of chemicals.
  • Although some food regulators consider adulterated spices to present a lower risk to consumers than other foods, because many people consume them in small amounts, some sectors of the population consume significant quantities of spices and are therefore at higher risk.
  • Food businesses that purchase red-coloured foods including spices and unrefined palm oil should consider such foods vulnerable to Sudan dye adulteration, and implement mitigations.

Main sources:

Castell, A., Arroyo-Manzanares, N., López-García, I., Zapata, F. and Viñas, P. (2024). Authentication strategy for paprika analysis according to geographical origin and study of adulteration using near infrared spectroscopy and chemometric approaches. Food control, 161, pp.110397–110397. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2024.110397.

‌Tarantelli, T (2024), correspondence with author.

Tarantelli, T. (2017). Adulteration with Sudan Dye Has Triggered Several Spice Recalls. [online] FoodSafetyTech. Available at: https://foodsafetytech.com/feature_article/adulteration-sudan-dye-triggered-several-spice-recalls/.

‌There are ‘protected origin’ paprikas in Europe (more correctly known as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)).  These protected paprikas are from specific regions and are known for their unique regional characteristics.  For example, there is a special paprika from a certain part of Spain called Pimentón de La Vera and one from Hungary called Kalocsai fűszerpaprika-őrlemény.  Source: Castell et al (2024)