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Food Fraud Update June 2021

What’s new in food fraud and food fraud prevention?  Food Fraud Advisors’ Principal, Karen Constable provides an update.

Alarming Results from the Beverage Sector (97% of businesses affected by Food Fraud)

Food fraud is rife in the beverage sector, with alcoholic beverages most at risk.  Counterfeiting and smuggling are thought to be the most prevalent types of food fraud for alcoholic drinks, however the activity with the most serious public health impact is illicit manufacture of beverages.  Incorrect methods of fermentation can result in methanol, rather than ethanol, being present in the finished drink.  Methanol may also be added deliberately to illicitly-manufactured products.  Methanol is poisonous.  Each year a significant number of deaths are recorded from the consumption of bootleg alcoholic drinks.

Operation OPSON is an annual Interpol-Europol operation against food and beverage fraud.  Alcoholic beverages are usually targeted in the operation, because of the threats fraud activities pose to public health and to public revenue.  Interestingly, though, energy drinks and soda pop were a focus of enforcement activity by authorities in Africa and the Middle East during the OPSON IX operation in Dec 2019 – June 2020. Non-alcoholic drinks worth almost USD 350,000 were seized by authorities.  During the same operation, 1,613 tonnes of counterfeit and substandard alcoholic drinks were seized, including wine, vodka and whiskey.

The beverage sector is well aware of the risks posed to their consumers and their brands from food fraud activities.  A survey by Lloyds Register of 100 senior executives from the beverage sector found that almost all of their businesses (97%) had been affected by food fraud in the 12 months prior to the survey.  Food fraud is a growing concern for 80% of beverage businesses and only 22% of beverage manufacturers are very confident that their suppliers meet food safety standards.  Get access to the survey report here.

 

The COVID Pandemic and Food Fraud

More than one year since the COVID pandemic began, its impact on food fraud is still unquantified.  A number of commentators (including me) predicted that the pandemic would increase the international food industry’s vulnerability to food fraud.  Interestingly, Decernis, the publisher of the most comprehensive and well-respected food fraud database, reported that the actual number of verified incidents of food fraud had not increased during the pandemic. This was unexpected. But we may now have an answer.

Last week, Europol and Interpol jointly published a report on their most recent annual operation targeting fake and substandard food and beverages, Operation OPSON IX. The report describes operations carried out between December 2019 and June 2020; which included the first few months of the pandemic.

Unsurprisingly, the results for this iteration of OPSON were atypical compared to previous operations.  This is due in part to the reduction in flow of goods at national and international levels during that period, as well as the impacts of personnel movement restrictions on local enforcement activities.  The authors also suggest that organized crime groups may have switched their focus from food and beverage to medicines and medical devices. They report there was an increase in organized crime activity in the medical sector and hypothesize that is the reason for a significantly lower number of organized crime groups being associated with food crime in the 2019 – 2020 operation compared to previous operations.

It’s disappointing to find out that other sectors are being targeted by criminals, but it does at least go some way towards explaining why we didn’t see an increase in reported incidents of food fraud in 2020 compared to 2019.

An Asian woman factory manager and staff wearing a masks, is counting stock and Check product quality of drinks, to people and Industrial plant Beverage products

Operation OPSON IX focused on wine, alcohol, milk, dairy products and horses’ passports.  Alcoholic beverages, meat, cheese and olive oil were the foods and drinks most often targeted by criminal organizations.  As in previous years there were problems with the traceability of horses, and smuggling of alcoholic beverages from Eastern European countries into the European Union.  Notable and unusual results include an increase in seizures of expired food.  Seizures of fruit, vegetables and legumes were also high compared to previous years.  Saffron worth USD350,000 was seized in Spain and Belgium.  The saffron seized in Spain was mixed with other types of plant material.  Apricot kernels, which are poisonous but were being sold as cancer treatment for high prices, were seized in the USA.  This operation also included notable seizures of raw animal feed, mostly in Portugal.  The Operation OPSON IX report is available here.

 

Food Fraud Resilience Tool

The National Food Crime Unit of United Kingdom has launched a food fraud self assessment tool for food businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  The tool helps businesses to identify the risks from food crime and outlines steps that they can take to mitigate the risks.  Access the tool here.

 

SQF and FSSC Standards Updated

Food Safety Management Systems Standards published by SQF and FSSC have both been updated.  SQF Edition 9 is in force from May 2021 and FSSC 22000 Scheme Version 5.1 was published in November 2020.  The food fraud-related requirements have not changed significantly, in terms of what needs to be done by food businesses.  Both still require food fraud vulnerability assessments and food fraud mitigation plans.  However, both standards have new wording and slightly different clause numbers so internal audit checklists will need updating.

The most notable change is that SQF Edition 9 explicitly refers to training of personnel for food fraud mitigation-related activities.  It has also dropped stolen goods from the list of susceptibilities that need to be considered in a vulnerability assessment.

Need advice?  Looking for someone to update your food fraud prevention program?  Karen can help. Contact Us to arrange a no-obligation, free introductory consultation.

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Preventing food fraud: testing is not the answer

Fraudulently adulterated food is receiving a lot of attention at the moment. While it is widely acknowledged that food fraud is a large and expensive problem requiring urgent action there is not a lot of practical advice available about exactly what actions food businesses should take to prevent, deter and detect food fraud. And, although published advice about direct action is rare, there is plenty of commentary that discusses the issue in general terms, including one very common refrain: food testing is not the answer.

Food safety hang-ups

One of the reasons we so often hear that testing is not the answer is that many food fraud commentators come from a food safety and quality assurance background. As such, our unwillingness to rely on testing for food fraud can be explained in part by our familiarity with food safety systems. Within the realms of food safety, testing can achieve nothing on its own; the prevention of risks and control of hazards is much more effective and efficient, with testing used simply to verify that the system is working.

For those who are less familiar with food safety systems, let’s take a closer look. For the sake of simplicity, imagine a hypothetical food safety system that is designed solely to prevent the growth of a pathogenic microorganism in salami. If the system relied solely on testing, one would have to take a sample from every pack of salami, test for pathogens and then discard packs which were found to be contaminated. A missed test could have deadly consequences. Worse still, the sampling itself could lead to contamination. A better way is to use preventive control methods to stop hazards before they arise and carefully monitor critical operations in the production process so that the finished product is safe. This combination of prevention and monitoring is the basis for every modern food safety system. Within those systems the food must still be tested to verify that the system is working but in fact every piece of salami that is consumed without causing illness is a form of ongoing verification.

Dairy Processing

Fraudulently adulterated food is very different from accidentally contaminated food. It usually doesn’t make people sick and can rarely be identified as fraudulent by the consumer. People who adulterate food for financial gain aim to avoid detection and for that reason adulterated food rarely causes acute illness. In fact, the Chinese government is currently assuring its citizens that the large volumes of counterfeit baby formula within that market are safe to consume. There have been instances of fraudulent food that caused illness and death, including the melamine milk scandal in China and toxic mineral oil passed off as olive oil in Spain. In another famous case, a carcinogenic industrial dye was used to make paprika powder appear fresher. In each of these cases it was some time before the link between illness and adulterated food was found.

Criminals are smarter than Salmonella.

The prevention of microbial contamination and growth in food can be achieved in a few simple steps using well-understood methods; Salmonella hasn’t figured out how to outsmart a thermal kill step yet. But people who seek to make money from adulterating food have much more imagination than your average bacterium. While there are only about 120 food borne pathogens known to man, there are almost unlimited ways to tamper with food, meaning many different types of controls are required. Unfortunately, any effective control method can be discovered and then outsmarted by a clever fraudster, making reliance on prevention a risky proposition. And the worst part is that no matter how effective a fraud prevention system is, at the end of the day it is indistinguishable from an ineffective fraud prevention system to the naked eye; without very frequent testing there is no way to know the system is working.

More testing?

Testing is a key element of effective fraud prevention. I envisage a day when every food manufacturer tests vulnerable raw materials before they are used in production, where every supermarket has the technology to verify that their food is authentic before they place it on their shelves and where even local restaurants will have access to cheap and fast authenticity testing. Testing holds the answers to many of our current food fraud challenges.  However, testing can be expensive, time consuming and much less effective than we would like.

Pesticide residue in food

A key challenge to the efficacy of testing is that when it comes to food fraud we can never be sure of the adulterant that might be present. Many currently available test methods are targeted for a particular adulterant, and are not designed to detect adulterants that are unexpected. Non-targetted tests are rapidly being developed but there are still relatively few that have been properly validated, a process that requires expensive cross-testing against other methods such as botanical testing, DNA-based methods and classical chemistry.

In less than five years, claim the makers of new rapid testing technology, we will be able to hold a scanner in our hand that can tell us the entire molecular makeup of our food. I think we will have to wait a little longer than that; food is complex and a huge amount of research will be required before we can properly interpret the results of complex molecular ‘scans’ of every food on the planet. But testing is an important tool in our fight to ensure an authentic food supply, and that’s a goal worth striving for.

Read about the latest food fraud analytical technologies here.

Are you ready to start testing for food fraud? Use our testing checklist to find out.

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Honey Fraud This Month: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Honey authenticity is all over the (food fraud) news this month.  There’s good news.  And bad.

Here’s what’s happening in honey fraud right now, from Karen Constable of authenticfood.co and Food Fraud Advisors.

 

 

Video transcript:

(Karen Constable) “It’s been a tough year for honey.  There has been lots of commentary about food fraud in honey, following a big recall in the UK at the end of last year and controversy over honey testing methods.  It’s never good to hear about food fraud issues, but there is a silver lining.

The Good

The Canadian government last year committed to spending more than $20 million on food fraud testing and intelligence gathering over a five year period.  Honey is one food product that has been chosen for surveillance by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The CFIA published their honey surveillance results this month and guess what?! Authenticity is up and food fraud is down compared to last year.

The CFIA sampled both the marketplace at large and also a number of bulk honey importers and processors that were deemed to be high risk.  Only 13% of samples were deemed not-authentic, compared to 22% the previous year.  That’s a significant improvement!

The CFIA used the results of their previous honey surveillance work to design a targeted sampling plan.  Those samples that they targeted had risk factors such as a history of non-compliance, known preventive controls deficits and unusual trading patterns.  This type of targeting sampling, in which previous results are used to focus on known problem areas, is a great way to maximise the value of authenticity testing (which can be expensive).  Way to go, Canadia! (PS for more on sampling methodology, click here)

Of those samples collected from the marketplace (that is, without being targeted towards high-risk products), 98% were authentic and the only products that had ‘unsatisfactory results’ were imported products.

So testing = good.  For my food safety viewers, it’s worth noting that – unlike micro testing – food authenticity testing can not only provide valuable insights into the occurrence of food fraud but also helps to prevent it.  The fact that someone is paying attention, and doing testing can effectively drive reductions in fraud, as we have seen with the Canadian honey testing regime.  My prediction is that next year’s surveillance will have even better results than this year’s.  And that’s something to be happy about!

The Bad

The Canadian government isn’t the only one that’s been testing honey this year.  The Indian Centre for Science and Environment and a government-funded institute in the Philippines have also published honey testing results this month.

In the Philippines, a survey of 74 locally-produced honeys purchased online found that 87% of them contained sugar syrup.  Ie rendering them NOT authentic honey.  More than 80% of these products actually contained no honey at all and were just made from sugar syrup.

These are some of the worst authenticity statistics that I have ever seen!

Local products purchased in brick and mortar stores fared a little better in this study, but the results were still bad, with around 75% of samples containing adulterant(s). Interestingly, in the Philippines, imported honeys performed significantly better than the locally-produced honeys, the opposite of what was seen in Canada.

So those results were pretty bad, but it is good to see authenticity testing being done in the public arena more frequently than in the past.

The Ugly

Yep, this is really ugly.

There’s testing and then there’s testing….

India is another country that is funding food adulteration prevention. And, of course, that’s a good thing.  And they are testing honey.

However, like many countries, India’s legal definition of honey is based on the chemical signature of the sugars in the product, which is verified using C3 and C4 testing.

In December, The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE, India) reported a very high proportion of ‘inauthentic’ honeys in a survey that made use of both C3/C4 tests and more sophisticated testing that makes use of NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) analysis.   Some honeys passed the C3/C4 tests but ‘failed’ the NMR tests.

Investigators from CSE claim this is due to the products being made with special syrups that are designed to ‘trick’ the C3/C4 tests. They allege that these syrups can be purchased cheaply via online trade portals.  The syrups are apparently marketed as “all pass” syrups because the suppliers claim they can pass the Indian government’s authenticity tests.

The CSE say that their own testing has confirmed that samples containing up to 50 percent of “all pass” syrup pass the tests.

Wrap up

There’s big money to be made from food fraud, as I have said before.  I have even heard it said that olive oil fraud is 3 times more profitable than smuggling cocaine – as well as being much less risky. (I haven’t been able to find the original source of that comment, I heard it at a food fraud conference in 2017).  And where there is money to be made, criminals will find ways to cheat the system.

Sadly, worldwide volumes of honey production are way down and predicted to fall even further due to climate change and bee colony diseases. That makes genuine honey more scarce, more valuable and, as a result, more profitable to fake.  Honey fraud is – unfortunately – here to stay.

My hope is that organisations like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the CSE in India continue to keep the pressure on honey fraudsters. Let’s keep making their lives hell!”

 

 

 

 

 

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Nutraceuticals; a growing risk

A nutraceutical is a food or food component that is designed to provide health benefits when ingested.  The term is derived from the words nutrition and pharmaceutical.  Nutraceuticals may claim to promote health, prevent and even treat disease.  Nutraceuticals are big business; their global sales volume is estimated to be more than $382 billion in 2019.  Demand for nutraceuticals is at an all time high and growing year on year as the idea of ‘nutrition for health’ becomes more popular.

Both consumers and businesses purchase nutraceuticals; consumers buy supplements to add to food or as stand-alone pills, powders and tonics.  Businesses purchase nutraceuticals to add to the food and beverage products that they manufacture.  Nutraceuticals are also used in personal care products like face creams and in animal feed.

Nutraceuticals are not regulated in the same way as pharmaceuticals, so their claimed benefits do not necessarily have to be proven.  In many countries, they are not covered by food laws either.  As a result, nutraceuticals receive minimal regulatory oversight in many countries, including the USA.

Nutraceuticals are big business with a large global market and fast-growing demand

Fraud in nutraceuticals

Nutraceuticals are a good target for food fraud because of their high prices and high demand.  They are manufactured from specialist agricultural commodities that are often only produced in one or two locations worldwide.  As a result their global supply chains can be complicated.

Fraud in pharmaceuticals can take the form of:

  • Adulteration or dilution
  • Counterfeiting
  • Diversion and grey market

Adulteration and dilution

Adulteration and dilution fraud occurs when the claimed active ingredient is not present in the quantities that are declared by the manufacturer.  Sometimes, the ‘correct’ ingredients are replaced with cheaper ingredients that do not have the functional properties of the genuine ingredients.

Adulteration fraud is thought to occur often in nutraceuticals.  A survey of raw botanical plant parts and powders in the USA found 53% of them contained plant material that did not match the label.   In a separate study, cranberry extracts were found to have been adulterated with cheaper and more abundant grape seed extracts.  A range of aloe vera products contained no evidence of aloe vera ingredients at all.

Adulteration also takes a more insidious form, when fraudsters add extra functional ingredients without declaring them on the label.  This can put consumers’ lives at risk.  The fraud is usually perpetrated to boost the efficacy of nutraceuticals that are claimed to be natural.  For example, grapefruit seed extract, a dietary supplement that is said to have natural antimicrobial properties has been found to contain undeclared added chemical biocides such as benzylkonium chloride, methyl paraben and triclosan.  The biocides are added to mimic or increase the antimicrobial properties of the grapefruit seed.

Adulteration with pharmaceutical drugs also occurs.  Supplements for body-building and weight loss have been spiked with drugs that enhance their effects.  In 2017, the US FDA warned consumers  that body building supplements sometimes contain undeclared and illegal selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMS), which mimic the effects of testosterone.  Liver injuries and other serious side-effects occurred in people who took the so-called ‘natural’ supplements.

A 2019 study conducted in The Netherlands found 64% of supplements contained pharmacologically active substances or plant toxins such as caffeine or ephedrine.

Counterfeiting

Counterfeiting is the copying of a product by an entity other than the brand owner, so that it appears exactly the same as the legitimate product.  Counterfeited supplements may be produced in unlicensed facilities under unhygienic conditions.  They may contain less of the functional ingredients than the authentic product, or perhaps none at all.

Diversion of nutraceuticals. 1. The manufacturer sells their product into multiple countries at different price points. 2. A wholesaler in a lower-price-tier country purchases bulk quantities. 3. The wholesaler diverts the product from authorised sales channels in their own country to sell the product into markets with higher prices.

Diversion and Grey Market Fraud

Diversion and grey market fraud occurs when goods are directed away from their expected supply chain, being sold to places unintended by the brand owner.  This can be profitable if, for example, a product is sold at a higher price in one country but a lower price in another.

Distributors or importers of a nutraceutical can participate in diversion if they purchase more than they expect to sell through legitimate channels, obtaining a bulk quantity discount in the process.  The excess stock can then be sold to discount outlets or individuals who sell it on the internet or other channels that have not been authorised by the brand owner.

Products that have been diverted may be expired (past ‘best before’) or may have been held in conditions such as hot warehouses that degrade the product, causing it to lose its potency.

 

Protection from fakes and diversions

Manufacturers can protect their brands from counterfeiting and grey market sales by adding anti-counterfeiting features to product packaging.  The features can be overt or convert. Often a combination of both overt and covert features is used.

Overt brand protection features are obvious to the consumers.  They include holograms, tamper-evident labels, seals and stickers.  Overt brand protection features are used to provide consumers with a sense of safety and trust in the brand. Unfortunately, counterfeiters can easily copy overt features.

QR codes and bar codes can be added to packages so that purchasers can check the authenticity of the product.  However, barcodes and QR codes can be copied by counterfeiters.  Unless the QR or bar code is unique to a single batch or single product, then anyone who checks a counterfeit product that carries a copied bar code or QR code will be fooled into thinking it is legitimate.

Covert brand protection features are designed to be invisible.  They often require special scanners for reading and verification.  They can include fluorescing inks that can be read only under invisible wavelengths of light.  Chemically unique inks can be customised for a single manufacturer so that they are difficult for counterfeiters to reverse engineer.  These are called ‘taggant inks’.

Covert features are most useful for brand owners when they need to investigate a problem with product; they reveal whether the problematic product is genuine or not. They can also be used to find counterfeit products in authorised sales outlets and trace products that have been diverted.

Unique, serialised product identification codes provide an extra layer of protection.  Each product or product batch carries a different code.  The codes can be scanned by distributors, retailers and consumers to provide assurance that the product is authentic.

Protection from counterfeits and diversions using digital authentication. The product is marked with a unique code that can be scanned by distributors, retailers and consumers.  The code is checked against digital product information to check its authenticity.

Digital authentication as a protection against nutraceutical fraud. The product is marked with a unique code that can be scanned by distributors, retailers and consumers. The code is checked against digital product information to check its authenticity.

 

When the unique identifier is scanned, the brand owner can find out where the product is geographically located.  If that does not match the expected location of that product within the authorised supply chain that could signal diversion.  Likewise, if a single ‘unique’ barcode or QR code is scanned by multiple consumers that would indicate fakes in the market; counterfeiters have copied one code and applied it to whole batches of product.

One company to have benefitted from such a system is Windmill, a well-known Dutch brand of potato starch.  The company claims that its products were affected ‘up to 50%’ by counterfeits and look-alikes in overseas markets until it implemented digital security features including a unique ID code on each pack.  The code allows the purchaser to confirm authenticity, while the act of checking provides the brand owner with “valuable data… which can be used to make the entire supply chain more transparent and to generate crucial market insights.”

Nutraceuticals are high value products with complex global supply chains, making them an attractive target for food fraud.  Brand owners have been caught manufacturing and supplying products that contain less than the amount of functional ingredients.  Other brands have been found to contain undeclared pharmacological components, which can be dangerous. Diversion and counterfeiting of legitimate product also affects nutraceuticals.  With growing global demand for nutraceuticals, consumers and businesses alike need to be on the look out for food fraud in this sector.

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Organic Food Fraud in 2020

Twelve million dollars buys a lot of raspberries. Even if they are organic. In August 2019, a $12m shipment of (supposedly) organic raspberries was intercepted at the Chilean border, as they were being exported to Canada. They were accompanied by fake organic declarations and fraudulent paperwork claiming they were grown in Chile.

It was an all too common occurrence; organic food fraud, committed by criminals to profit from the higher prices consumers will pay for organic, “clean” produce. The raspberries were not grown in Chile; they had been shipped all the way from China; imported to Chile so the fraudsters could pretend they were locally grown.

And they were not organic.

Organic berries are vulnerable to food fraud

 

Sales of organic food have increased since the global corona virus pandemic started. Sales in the USA were up 50% in March 2020. An Organic Trade Association poll of “likely organic shoppers” found 90% of respondents think buying organic has become more important because of the virus, presumably because of an increased focus on health and healthy eating.

Sales of organic food are increasing year on year. In 2019, American consumers bought $55.1 billion worth of organic food, up on the previous year by 4.6% .

As organic food becomes ever-more popular, frauds like the raspberry heist are becoming more common. It is impossible for a consumer to know whether food is authentically organic or not. This makes organic fraud easy for criminals to get away with. Organic foods are one of the food types most frequently affected by food fraud, according to the Decernis Food Fraud Database.

The good news for the USA is that after many years of criticism of its organic program, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is making a visible effort to reduce fraud in the organic supply chain.  In fact, they are proposing new rules that aim to strengthen control systems, improve traceability for organic produce, and increase enforcement of the USDA organic regulations.

Organic peas vegetable pesticide
Organic foods and food fraud are like two (freshly picked) peas in a pod.

How to protect your business from organic fraud

If you have a food business that buys or sells organic food, you are at risk, now more than ever. Global supply chains have been disrupted by the pandemic and these disruptions mean many suppliers are struggling to deliver foods that meet specifications. It is tempting for wholesalers and distributors to substitute conventionally-grown produce for organic to make extra profits, or simply to allow them to fulfill customers’ orders.

Step 1: Become aware

Don’t be blind to the risks. Organic fraud happens more often than most people realise. Would you be able to tell the difference between an organic raspberry and a conventionally grown raspberry? Probably not. If criminals in Chile found it profitable to transport fake organic raspberries right across the globe before the pandemic, you can bet they are even more motivated to perpetrate fraud in the current economic climate.

Step 2: Educate yourself

If you own a food business, educate yourself about the risks. Learn about organic fraud; how it is perpetrated, what it looks like.

Michigan State University and the USA Organic Trade Association have published a free online course in Organic Fraud Prevention. It is US-centric but contains fraud detection and prevention strategies that can be applied anywhere.

Step 3: Assess your ingredients and products

Make a list of the organic food ingredients or food products that your business purchases. For each item on the list, ask yourself the question: “Can I be sure this is really organic?”.

Right now, you probably rely on verbal assurances from suppliers or pretty logos on packaging or invoices. That’s a fool’s game.

Instead, seek proper documentation from suppliers: request copies of organic certificates and cross-check them against invoices and labels. Or take a minute to research the certifications and logos on labels. All reputable organic certification bodies maintain a list of certified products or suppliers that you can check online. If the product or grower has a genuine organic certification, you will find it listed on the certification body’s website.

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for food companies to use organic logos without having the proper certifications.  Always check.

You can also check the list of fraudulent certificates on the USDA organic program website.

If your business operates a food safety program it should already have a food fraud vulnerability assessment.  Review that assessment.  All organic foods should be rated as “vulnerable” in the vulnerability assessment and they must have appropriate mitigation strategies applied to reduce the risks.

Step 4; Take steps to reduce the risk

If you can’t be sure of the authenticity of the ingredients or products you are buying (and selling) you only have two choices:

(i) change your supplier to one with a properly certified organic program, or

(ii) stop making organic claims about the products you sell.

To do anything else puts you at risk of inadvertently committing food fraud, which is a criminal offence.

Consumers are buying more organic foods than ever before.  At the same time, the unstable global economy makes fraud more tempting and supply chain disruptions provide extra opportunities for criminals.  Organic food fraud puts your business and brands at risk.

Now is not the time for complacency; stay alert and keep your brands safe.