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Fraud rates of 33% in seafood (USA)

A survey of imported frozen shrimp, squid and tilapia products found 36% (n = 28) were affected by short-weighting, which is when the package contains less weight than declared and, for frozen seafood, when the product or package contains too much water glaze or ice (“overstating the net weight of frozen seafood by including the weight of glazing (ice) is not permitted”).

Close-up of a pile of frozen shrimp.
The frozen seafood products were affected by short-weighting. Image: IrinaKur/BigStock.

 

The survey was conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during 2022-2024. The sampling included both targeted and general surveillance samples of both raw and cooked products, covering 12 businesses from 4 countries. The samples were collected during import, prior to release into U.S. commerce. Each sample consisted of 48 units from the same production lot.

Most of the samples (25 of 28) were shrimp, with 2 squid and 1 tilapia sample included. Both squid samples were found to violate short-weight rules (100%, n = 2). Eight shrimp samples were violative (32%, n = 25). The tilapia sample was compliant – United States 02/09/2025.

Source: https://www.fda.gov/food/economically-motivated-adulteration-food-fraud/sample-collection-and-analysis-imported-frozen-seafood-economically-motivated-adulteration-year-2022

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

 

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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

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Counterfeit Diet Coke in London?

Counterfeiting is the imitation of a food or beverage, including its brand, packaging, or labeling, with the intent to deceive customers and consumers into thinking they are getting the authentic product.

In a food fraud context, alcoholic beverages such as vodkas and whiskies are often affected by counterfeiting. For example, in July, Glen’s Vodka, the leading vodka brand in Scotland and the second best-selling spirit in the UK was affected by a counterfeiting scandal, after authorities detected fake versions of the product in the market.

The fake Glen’s vodka contained the harmful chemical isopropyl alcohol, and consumers were warned to seek urgent medical care by Food Standards Scotland in the wake of the discovery.

Food Standards Scotland A yellow arrow points to etched numbers on the back of a glass bottle
Genuine bottles of Glen’s Vodka carry specific etched codes. Image via BBC.com

 

But it’s not only alcoholic drinks that are targeted by counterfeiters.

Non-alcoholic drinks, including copies of premium brands of carbonated beverages (soft drinks) are also made by counterfeiters. Reports about the counterfeiting of soft drinks surface quite frequently in my food fraud searches, most often in Pakistan.

Here’s an incident report I published in June, for example:

Authorities confiscated bottles of counterfeit soft drinks (3,900 bottles), artificial sweeteners (250 kg), empty bottles (4,000), fake bottle caps (60 kg), counterfeit labels (200 kg), filling machines, chemicals, gas cylinders and storage drums – Pakistan | Source: Issue 193, The Rotten Apple.

Last week, while researching counterfeit soft drinks, I stumbled upon a consumer’s musings about possibly fake Diet Coke, which piqued my interest.

While we know that counterfeit soft drinks are discovered every year by authorities in Pakistan, it’s rare to hear a consumer perspective. This is likely because consumers will be either unaware they have purchased a ‘fake’ and so don’t think to complain about it, or they complain to the legitimate brand owner, who does not publicise the information.

So to find a first-person account from a consumer of ‘fake’ soft drink was intriguing to me.

What made it more intriguing was that the consumer was in London, England.

It’s easy to imagine that counterfeit versions of low-cost products only occur in the developing world. However, soft drink fraud does happen in wealthy countries.

In fact, just last week, a man in the United States was sentenced for his role in a massive multi-year counterfeiting operation affecting 5-hour Energy drinks. At the height of the operation in 2015, it was shipping 75,000 bottles per day from an illicit manufacturing facility in California.

Could this also be happening in London with Diet Coke?

Here’s what the consumer, One_Inflation_9475 said on Reddit/r/london last month:

“I suspect that some of the soda sold in cheap kebab shops are counterfeit. The taste always put me off. So today, I compared it. I bought a Diet Coke bottle from a kebab shop. It was a bit harsh and seemed acidic. Then, I bought same thing from Tesco and its taste was soft and felt good to my taste buds.

“Price of the meal deal is also a suspect: £5 for a burger, handful of fries and a bottle of soda. What do you guys think?”

“I suspect that some of the soda sold in cheap kebab shops are counterfeit”

What do I think? I think s/he could be right in thinking the bottle of Diet Coke they got in a very low-cost meal deal from a takeaway shop is counterfeit.

There are, of course, other reasons the product could have tasted ‘harsh’ and ‘acidic’ compared to Diet Coke from Tesco. Notably, artificially sweetened beverages lose flavour over time as the sweeteners degrade.

Another reason, proposed by responders to the consumer’s post, is that soft drinks “taste different in different countries.” However, I’m not buying it.

The consumer would almost certainly have noticed the name of an offshore bottler or the presence of a foreign language on the label after they became suspicious of the product. And if they had discovered it was from overseas, I believe they would have attributed the taste difference to that, rather than claiming the product was counterfeit.

Anyway, how exactly would a takeaway shop owner obtain offshore versions of a product belonging to a company that is famous for tightly controlling its sales channels?

Perhaps the store owner (illegally) received soft drinks imported from another country? Perhaps from a place like Pakistan? Perhaps the imports were fakes.

We cannot know for sure. But it’s worth remembering that counterfeit drinks are manufactured by criminals who cut corners, ignore safety protocols, use dirty water and non-food-grade chemicals, and generally endanger the lives of consumers.

My advice to any consumer or business who suspects they have been given a counterfeit product is to keep the package and tell the brand owner. Provide photos of the labels, the batch code and the best before date so the company can hunt down the counterfeiters who are trashing their brand and selling potentially dangerous products.

The owner of 5-hour Energy realised their product was being counterfeited after a salesperson purchased a box of product from a distributor that had stopped ordering from them and discovered it had a different taste, color and smell to authentic 5-hour Energy. Investigators acting on their behalf seized more than 2.6 million counterfeit bottles during subsequent investigations.

Could counterfeit Diet Coke be available in London, England? Perhaps. I hope not, but stranger things have happened.

In short: A consumer in London, England, suspects the Diet Coke sold by a kebab shop (multiple purchases) is counterfeit 🍏 Soft drinks are affected by counterfeiting 🍏 Pakistan authorities frequently report the seizure of counterfeit copies of famous brands of soft drink 🍏 Large volumes of a popular energy drink were counterfeited in the United States in the 2010s 🍏 Consumers or businesses supplied with ‘wrong’ tasting foods should report their concerns to the brand owner who can investigate suspected counterfeits🍏

Main sources (minor sources are hyperlinked in the text):

Schnapp, D. and Frankfurter, B. (2016) ‘Counterfeiting in our own backyard’, New York State Bar Association Journal, 34(2), pp. 21–23. Available online: https://foxrothschild.gjassets.com/content/uploads/2016/10/SchnappFrankfurterArticle-InsideCorpCounselFall16.pdf

Reddit.com. (2025). I suspect that some of the soda sold in cheap kebab shops are counterfeit. r/london. [online] Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/1n8gt70/i_suspect_that_some_of_the_soda_sold_in_cheap/

Read more: 🍏 Fake Coke follow-up | Issue 210 🍏

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

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Massive fraud in U.S. antibiotic-free meat

Consumers perceive antibiotic-free meat as a healthier, more ethical choice than meat from animals raised with antibiotics and pay higher prices for such meat. However, investigations reveal that many ‘antibiotic-free’ products in the United States are not what they claim to be.

I previously shared shocking figures released by the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) based on the results of a 2023 testing program that included 189 samples from 84 slaughter establishments in 24 states.

The FSIS found antibiotic residues in liver and kidney samples of 20% of cattle destined for the ‘Raised without antibiotics’ (RWA) market.

That is, approximately 20% of US beef claimed to be raised without antibiotics was being marketed with false claims.

🍏 Find my original report here 🍏

What surprised me, when I stumbled upon that data, published in August 2024, was that it had not provoked any kind of outrage – or in fact any response at all – in mainstream media outlets.

Surely this was a scandal that consumers would want to know about?

It didn’t help that the figures were not published as a report but buried in the ‘Background’ section of an FSIS page announcing a comment period on a guideline for meat labelling claims.

A woman in safety glasses and lab coat is holding up a vial of red liquid.
The USDA’s FSIS sampled material from 189 cattle destined for the ‘Raised Without Antibiotics’ market and found antibiotic residues in 20% of animals. Image: DC Studio on Freepik.

 

This was not the first time antibiotic residues had been found in RWA meat and cattle. In 2022, researchers from the George Washington University reported that 15% of US RWA cattle contained antibiotic residues. Also in 2022, advocacy group Farm Forward found antibiotics in RWA beef purchased from Whole Foods.

In letters from the USDA to the companies found to be engaging in deceptive behaviour, obtained under freedom of information by Farm Forward, the USDA told the companies they may have produced misbranded product but would not be subject to any enforcement action.

In 2025, Farm Forward publicly named the companies with positive results, revealing that antibiotics were detected in beef declared ‘Raised without antibiotics’ from three of the four largest meat processors in the US.

In their April 2025 report, Farm Forward said JBS and Cargill continue to sell RWA, while Tyson abandoned some of its RWA brands in July 2024, after the USDA tests.

Smaller companies are also alleged to be continuing to use questionable claims, with Farm Forward stating that three smaller brands that market their meat as “no antibiotics ever” and “raised without antibiotics” continue to sell meat despite receiving positive results in the USDA survey and without announcing any changes to procedures, nor sharing any subsequent test results to verify their claims.

The USDA, which must approve all RWA claims before they may be used by a company, has not made any changes to its approval process and continues to rely on producers’ self-reporting of antibiotic use.

However, the FSIS states it now “strongly encourages meat and poultry establishments to substantiate such claims by implementing a routine sampling and testing program to test for the use of antibiotics in animals prior to slaughter.” Or, as an alternative, to obtain third-party certification that involves antibiotic testing.

This means that meat marketed as ‘antibiotic-free’ or ‘raised without antibiotics’ in the U.S. may continue to be affected by false and misleading claims. The USDA does not publicly disclose violations, nor penalise companies for mislabelling. As a result, consumers continue to pay premium prices for meat that may not be true to label.

Antibiotic-free meat: the global context

Antibiotics are used in meat production to prevent and treat bacterial infections in animals. In the United States, antibiotics are also used to promote growth and improve feed efficiency, allowing farmers to produce more meat with less feed.

However, the use of antibiotics as growth promoters is effectively banned in many other countries worldwide. Such bans aim to limit antibiotic use and curb the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, which pose major threats to public health.

In the U.S., the meat industry accounts for a significant portion of all antibiotics used in that country. For example, in 2020 it purchased 69% of the U.S. supply of medically important antibiotics, with just 31% being used for humans.

There is no publicly available information about the proportion of antibiotics that are used for prophylactic purposes, such as growth promotion, compared to treatment of already-sick animals in the U.S. However, compared to the European Union, the U.S. uses nearly double the quantity of antibiotics for livestock, based on 2020 figures.

‘Antibiotic-free’ meat is supposed to come from animals that have not received antibiotics at any stage in their lives. In the U.S., these products are labelled ‘Raised Without Antibiotics’ (RWA), a claim that is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) but which relies on self-attestation by meat producers.

Theoretically, under the USDA RWA program, if an animal falls ill and requires antibiotics, it is removed from the program by the farm operator, and its meat should not be sold under the antibiotic-free label.

Globally, only 20% of countries still use antimicrobials as growth promoters in meat production. In the European Union, antibiotics have not been permitted for use as growth-promoters since 2006, with China following suit in 2020.

There are partial restrictions in Australia, Canada, Uruguay, and Brazil, with most countries outlawing the use of antibiotics that are medically important for humans for use as livestock growth-promoters, while allowing other antibiotics to be used for such purposes.

A loophole related to the labelling and registration of feed additives exists in some countries. Feeds may contain undeclared low doses of antimicrobials, which are then unknowingly administered by farmers and veterinarians to their animals.

Globally, false claims of ‘antibiotic-free’ status may occur in any market where consumers pay a premium for meat labelled as such.

In short: USDA testing of animals destined for the ‘Raised Without Antibiotics’ market (RWA) revealed 20% of animals contained antibiotic residues 🍏 Companies were not named and no enforcement action was taken, despite the USDA telling companies they may have sold misbranded product 🍏 FSIS says it strongly encourages meat and poultry establishments to implement testing programs or engage with certifiers that use testing programs, however this is not mandatory 🍏 Purchasers of meat marketed as ‘antibiotic-free’ or ‘raised without antibiotics’ should be aware that these claims could be false 🍏

Main sources (minor sources are hyperlinked in the text):

Gillespie, K (2025) Is “Antibiotic-Free” Meat Really Antibiotic-Free?, Farm Forward [online]. Available for download from https://www.farmforward.com/publications/is-antibiotic-free-meat-really-antibiotic-free/

USDA (2023). Availability of FSIS Guideline on Substantiating Animal-Raising or Environment-Related Labeling Claims | Food Safety and Inspection Service. [online] Available at: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/policy/federal-register-rulemaking/federal-register-notices/availability-fsis-guideline.

 

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

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A faked inspection mark prompts a recall in the US

While food fraud can result in food safety problems, it’s very rare to see a recall for food fraud that is initiated prior to any reports of consumer illness. So I was very interested to see a recall in the USA in mid-2025 associated with food fraud.

The agency that initiated the recall, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), said they were concerned that the recalled products posed a risk to consumers. It designated the recall a Class I, which is the most serious classification for recalls by that agency, reserved for hazards with a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences or death.

Following the agency decision, a manufacturer in the US announced it would recall 32,000 pounds (14.5 metric tonnes) of sausage, pork chops and ribs after it was caught faking the USDA mark of inspection that must be carried on all meat products manufactured in the United States.

The product bore a false establishment number, which made it seem like it had been produced under the supervision of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors.

The recalled products bore false marks of inspection and carried the establishment number EST. 1785. There is no such establishment registered with the USDA.

A photo of one of the recalled foods with a red circle highlighting the false USDA establishment number.
One of the recalled foods with the false USDA establishment number. Image: FSIS

 

What made this unusual among food fraud incidents is the recall was initiated even though there had been no reports of consumer illness or injury from these products.

The recall was initiated because the FSIS considers food produced without inspection to be dangerous, saying it “may contain undeclared allergens, harmful bacteria, or other contaminants that put consumer health and safety at risk”.

Sadly, in 2024 we saw evidence that FSIS inspection is perhaps less effective than the agency seems to imagine when meat products produced WITH inspection caused the deaths of 10 people from Listeria.

The ready-to-eat liverwurst linked that Listeria outbreak was made at a USDA-registered establishment by Boar’s Head. Before the outbreak, the facility had been described as filthy and contaminated, with condensation dripping onto food, mold, insects, food residues and “general filth” by inspectors representing the FSIS – the very people supposedly positioned in the facility to prevent contamination and protect consumers.

So call me a cynic, but a relatively small selection of not-ready-to-eat food produced without FSIS inspection seems no more risky than a truckload of ready-to-eat liverwurst produced with FSIS inspection.

However, I digress. The interesting thing to note with this recall is that the root cause is fraud. The legal framework in this case is the Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act (FD&C Act (1938)), which considers food marketed with false information to be “misbranded”, making it illegal in the United States.

Beyond the FD&C Act, and using my definition of food fraud, which is “deception, using food for economic gain” this incident is an example of food fraud: the company sold their products with a fake trust symbol – the USDA establishment number – and in the process acted deceitfully to achieve economic gain, in this case by gaining market access that would not have been possible without the false USDA mark.

From a lawyerly perspective, proving ‘fraud’ in a court of law usually requires proof of intent. That is, the prosecutor has to show that the deceptive behaviour was done on purpose and was not a simple mistake.

We don’t have the same burden of proof when we discuss food fraud as non-lawyers. However, I do consider intention when deciding what to include in my weekly food fraud reports for The Rotten Apple.

I use my expertise to make a judgment about whether a deception could be intentional. If I judge an incident is more likely than not to be the result of an intentional act by someone in the supply chain, then I consider it ‘food fraud’.

Using fish species substitution as an example, the mislabelling of cheap fish like tilapia as expensive fish like Red Snapper is likely to be intentional because it gains the perpetrator extra money. Doing it the other way around – misrepresenting expensive fish as cheap fish – doesn’t result in a gain and is more likely to be accidental than intentional.

In the case of the fake USDA establishment number, I judge the deception to be intentional, with the understanding that this could be difficult to prove in a fraud case in a court of law.

But it is good to know that someone was paying attention and checking the authenticity of the establishment mark on these products and that the agency was willing to take action against the business. If only they had been so proactive at Boar’s Head.

In short: A recall has occurred after authorities learned of the fraudulent use of an establishment number on meat products in the USA 🍏 The recall was initiated to protect consumer safety, although no one was sickened 🍏 This is a rare example of a potential food safety problem from food fraud being identified by a government agency proactively, before anyone was harmed 🍏

Source: FSIS USDA Recall Notice

 

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