Food additives such as flavour-enhancers, gums, enzymes, emulsifiers, stabilizers, anti-caking agents, anti-oxidants and non-nutritive sweeteners are a bit of a “black box” when it comes to food fraud.  There are few records of food fraud in food additives in our Food Fraud Risk Information (Trello) Database, with the exception of vanilla extract flavouring, which has more entries.  However, just because we don’t have many public records for food fraud does not mean that it does not sometimes occur in food additives.

Food fraud problems with food additives might be less likely to become public knowledge because they are less likely to cause serious food safety issues compared to other food components, due to the tiny concentrations at which additives are present in finished products.  In the absence of a food safety incident or food recall, it is less likely that a food fraud will become public knowledge.

Food fraud in food additives might be easier to detect than food fraud in other ingredients.  For example, if a food additive was fraudulently diluted with a cheap filler, it would not perform as expected in a recipe, which would alert the food manufacturer to a problem.

Many food additives (excluding flavours) have short(ish) supply chains compared to other food types, which reduces the chances of fraudulent tampering with the product.

Fraud in food colourings

During July 2022, there were two border rejections for food colouring additives that contained unauthorised colouring agents.  The border rejections occurred in Europe.  The food colours originated in India.  It is not known whether the unauthorised components were present as a deliberate deception – that is food fraud – or if the importer was unaware of their regulatory status in the European Union. Links can be found in the food fraud incidents section.

On 1st September 2022, there was a major change to Food Fraud Advisors’ Food Fraud Risk Information Database on Trello.

Changes to the Database

After five years of providing free, 100% open-access food fraud information to the international food community, in August 2022 we made the difficult decision to change the content we publish on the Trello board.

From 1st September 2022, users of the Trello board will see a major change.  The database will continue to be updated with information for individual foods/ingredients, but we will no longer be providing (close-to) real-time food fraud incident news.   This means that separate cards for each individual food or raw material will continue to be updated when new risks or new emerging food fraud trends become known, but lists of incidents of food fraud will no longer be published on the board.  The “Recent Incidents” columns have been discontinued and the final column was August 2022.

What to do Now

Keep using the Trello board to research food fraud risks for foods, ingredients and materials.  Click on the cards for individual food types to see the risks.

For recent food fraud incidents, find a new source of up-to-date information:
1. Sign up to a paid food fraud/food safety alert service like FoodChainID’s HorizonScan; or
2. Perform your own searches online; or
3. Sign up for a free service (the JRC Food Fraud Monthly Reports are good);
4. Or, to retain access to our expertise in food fraud incident reporting, you can subscribe to Karen Constable’s newsletter, 🍏 The Rotten Apple 🍏.  It’s full of awesome food safety and supply chain news, and (for paying subscribers), food fraud incident reports, just like the ones that were previously published on the Trello board.

Food fraud incident reports will also be appended to the downloadable offline ‘snapshots’ of the database, which you can purchase from our website for US197.  We publish a new downloadable ‘snapshot’ six times per year.

Summary

❌ Recent Incidents Columns (Lists) have been discontinued

✅  Individual cards continue to be updated with information about food/ingredients/materials when new information becomes available

✅  Get recent food fraud incidents from 🍏 The Rotten Apple 🍏 newsletter, or by purchasing a downloadable, offline snapshot of the database, or by signing up for an alternative source of food fraud information, such as HorizonScan.

If you’ve got any questions, contact us.

Food Fraud Advisors’ Principal, Karen Constable, shares her top five food frauds for 2022.

At the time of writing, we’re almost halfway through 2022.  This year we have discovered some interesting frauds, and unfortunately also plenty of food frauds that occur over and over. Due to the criminal nature of food fraud, each of the examples shared here represents just a tiny proportion of the food fraud that is being perpetrated on a daily basis across the globe.

The incidents and fraud types in this list have been chosen because they pose food safety risks to consumers or are likely to be affecting large numbers of products.

1. Counterfeit Wonka chocolate bars in the United Kingdom

Counterfeiting is a type of food fraud where a well-known brand of food or drink is produced by an unauthorised manufacturer and passed off as the real thing.  In the case of Wonka bars, the brand owner is Nestle.

A man was caught in March 2022 for supplying counterfeit Wonka bars to retail outlets in the United Kingdom.

To make the counterfeit chocolate bars, the fraudster would have had to use heavy industrial food manufacturing machinery, which is expensive, and order custom-printed packaging, which is also expensive and can usually only be purchased in large quantities.  That’s a significant financial investment.

Because of the high costs to manufacture the fake products, we can infer that the fraudster must have expected to make significant profits.  We know that the risk of getting caught did not deter him because he was prosecuted for doing the same thing in 2016.  In April 2022 he pleaded guilty to doing it again.

One source says that Nestle, the legitimate brand-owner, no longer makes Wonka bars.  However, at least three online candy stores in my home country (Australia) are selling them today, which makes me think that there are counterfeit Wonka bars in many countries.  This could be quite a big operation.

The British authorities said that some of the counterfeit bars found in the United Kingdom contained undeclared hazelnuts, which makes them seriously dangerous to allergic consumers.

2. Secret tank in milk tanker fraud in Italy

This fraud is unusual.  Or perhaps it happens a lot but is rarely exposed.

In this fraud, a truck used for transporting milk had been modified so that the milk could be diluted with water just prior to unloading.  This allowed for milk to pass quality tests, and then to be diluted after passing the tests but before being pumped into the purchasers holding tanks.

Like the counterfeit chocolate bars, this type of fraud requires significant financial investment; it is expensive to make major modifications to stainless steel tanks.  Only two shipments of milk were confirmed to have been affected, but it is likely that the fraud was intended to be done on a much larger scale.

This fraud poses risks to food safety because the water used to dilute the milk could be contaminated, and the tanker might not be able to be properly cleaned because of the extra hardware inside the holding tanks.

Listen to the whole (fascinating) story of how the fraud was discovered here:

3. Seafood smuggling

Seafood smuggling is a ubiquitous food fraud.  It happens a large scale, all the time.  It is happening now, in 2022.

Seafood smuggling results in traceability problems that go right through the supply chain.  It’s estimated that at least 10% of seafood in any retail outlet has been affected by food fraud at some point between harvest and store.

Governments lose money from seafood smuggling because taxes, tariffs and duties are avoided when seafood is smuggled.

Smuggled seafood is significantly more likely to have originated in illegal catch areas, or caught in excess of fishing quotas, so it puts a strain on the environment as well as having an economic cost.  Smuggled seafood can also be affected by species fraud, where the fish is mislabelled.

When frozen seafood is smuggled it may also be affected by expiry date fraud too.  Expiry date fraud is when old frozen seafood is relabelled so it looks ‘younger’ than it actually is.

A large seafood smuggling ring was discovered by authorities in China in February of 2022, and this is probably the tip of the iceberg when it comes to seafood smuggling.

4. Organic fraud with grains and cereals from Eastern Europe

False claims about the organic (or ‘bio’) status of grains and cereals is a type of food fraud we call misrepresentation.  Organic fraud in bulk commodities is probably happening frequently in 2022, exacerbated by supply chain issues from the Ukraine war.

With this type of fraud, the grains or cereals are conventionally-grown, but their documentation is forged to make it look like they are organic.

Example: a shipment of oats was seized by authorities in Italy in January 2022 because they were alleged to have been falsely labelled as organic.

5. Country of origin fraud

This type of fraud occurs commonly and affects packaged retail products across many food product categories.

In Europe in 2022, there have been quite a few incidences of country-of-origin fraud and protected designated origin (PDO) fraud, including:

• A market operator in Italy was accused of country-of-origin fraud in relation to dried fish, legumes and spices which were claimed to be from Africa and Japan but which were instead from countries deemed ‘at risk’, meaning they require official clearances before being sold.
• Products including fresh fruit, vegetables, mushrooms and honey in France displayed rates of up to 30% “anomalies” in the way the origin of the food was declared.  The survey focussed on food from outside of France being incorrectly declared as being French.
• Significant quantities of bulk wine and bottled wine was seized by Italian authorities who allege the wine was labelled or was going to be labelled with false claims regarding its geographical provenance.

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