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.
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