Food Fraud Advisors

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Latest news in food fraud; tasty tapirs, ‘unripe’ honey and toxic eggs

Honey production increased by a phenomenal 88% in China between 2000 and 2014, despite an increase in the number of beehives by 21% during the same period.  This is said to be due to the harvesting of ‘unripe’ honey: the honey is removed from hives while still very watery, then it is artificially dried.   China is the world’s biggest honey producer and provides a significant proportion of Europe’s honey.

Meanwhile, a number of European countries have increased their honey exports at about the same rate as they have increased their imports from China, while there have been no increases in local production. It is alleged that the honey is being fraudulently re-labelled as European-grown honey when it originated in China. Read more about unripe honey and the European honey market here.

Contaminated eggs are being recalled and dumped by their millions in Europe and beyond

 

The biggest news in Europe in recent weeks has been the growing scandal around the discovery of a toxic pesticide in eggs.  The pesticide fipronil is commonly used to control lice and ticks on animals, however it is not allowed to be used in food production chains, including within poultry barns.  Eggs in more than 40 countries across Europe and beyond have been found to contain traces of the pesticide.  Millions of eggs have been recalled and dumped.  It is alleged that the source of the contamination can be traced back to a poultry barn cleaning company that used undeclared pesticide when treating barns in The Netherlands.  Two men from the company are being held on suspicion of endangering public health.  Read more about the egg scandal here.

Organic and eco-labelled foods are at very high risk of food fraud and as more cases of fraud in these sectors are uncovered there is a risk to consumer trust in sustainable foods according to Ecovia Intelligence.

Trust in sustainable foods is under threat from food fraud.

 

There has been depressing news from Canada this month, with undeclared meat species found in a wide selection of meat products.  Twenty percent of sampled products from the government-commissioned survey contained meat that wasn’t on the label, in quantities that could not be attributed to carry-over from product changeovers.  Seven of twenty seven beef sausages contained pork, one of thirty-eight pork sausages contained horse and one third of tested ‘turkey’ sausages contained nothing but chicken.

The citizens of Venezuela have been warned to be wary of meat from dubious sources, after zoo animals were stolen from Zulia Metropolitan Zoological Park in the city of Maracaibo. Ten species, including buffalo and tapirs, have gone missing from the zoo in recent weeks as the population suffers from serious food shortages.

Consumer trust in food producers and processed food is alarming low in the United Kingdom, reports NFU Mutual.  Almost three quarters of those surveyed believe food fraud is a widespread problem in the UK.

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Food Fraud Risk Database

It’s huge, it’s completely free and open-access; no log-in required.  It’s our

Food Fraud Risk Information Database

Compiled by food fraud experts and containing information about hundreds of different food types, including past incidences of food fraud and emerging threats, you can use it to meet the requirements of your food safety management system, for

  • food fraud vulnerability assessments,
  • food safety risk assessments
  • hazards from intentional adulteration requiring preventive controls (FSMA)
  • pre-filtering and
  • horizon scanning for emerging threats

You can choose to ‘watch’ the database to receive notifications every time new information is added.  You can also watch individual food types (say “Beef”) to receive updates for just that food type.

Access is free, although if you want to receive notifications you will need to create a (free) Trello account.  We do not receive income from Trello for new sign-ups.

Check it out today

food fraud risk database
Food Fraud Risk Information database, created by Food Fraud Advisors, hosted by Trello.com

 

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Coming to a store near you….

Keeping abreast of food fraud and food safety news is a daily activity and one of my favourite work tasks.  This week, as I skimmed through food industry trivia and pondered the launch of chocolate cheese (seriously), the two most alarming and unusual food fraud incidents I came across were news of thirty five businesses who were caught by Chinese authorities adding opium to food and a British business that was prosecuted for selling ‘almond’ powder that contained peanut.  By the way,  you did see that correctly: opium.  And just for the record, opium is not a permitted food additive.  Peanut-contamination of anything is, of course, a very serious risk to the safety of allergic consumers and has resulted in deaths in recent years.  It’s tragic to see that this type of adulteration continues to occur.

Having digested thousands of words of information about prosecutions, investigations, trends in food fashions and the changing regulatory landscape, I began to notice some patterns and found a couple of big red flags for future risks of food fraud.

Halal

Halal certifications are increasingly needed for market access for almost every food type at both the retail and wholesale level.  A halal product is often indistinguishable from its non-halal counterpart which means that everyday consumers are not able to verify food sellers’ claims about halal status.  Falsely claiming halal for a food item is an easy fraud to perpetrate, especially during the retail sale of un-packaged food in restaurants and takeaway stores.  Halal fraud can be as sophisticated as forgery of certification documents accompanying bulk shipments of food or as simple as dishonest signage in a takeaway store.  There have been a number of incidences of halal fraud in the news lately and these are almost certainly the tip of the iceberg.  I see very high risks in the South East Asian countries of Indonesia and Malaysia; these being some of the world’s biggest markets for halal food and having variable and sometimes chaotic food supply chains accompanied by uneven regulatory enforcement.  However, halal forgery can happen even in the most sophisticated markets with a recent prosecution in the United Kingdom in which the fraudster is alleged to have netted a quarter of a million pounds.  With this kind of money up for grabs, you can expect halal fraud to continue.

Is this meat halal?

Probiotics

Probiotics are among the hottest food ingredients for the healthy eating market right now.  New technology is claimed to enable probiotic bacteria – good bacteria – to survive in an ever-increasing range of food types, taking them beyond traditional yoghurts and ‘Yukult’ style dairy drinks.  Probiotic foods command a premium price and, as with many of the most vulnerable food fraud targets, the probiotic components are indiscernible to consumers.  There is a real and growing risk that fraudulent claims will be made about the quantity and types of live bacteria in food products, with the possibility of both accidental and deliberate frauds.  Any food business can make a mistake with formulations and shelf life, leading to discrepancies between the quantity of live bacteria in the food and what is claimed on the pack.  Premium brand owners are less likely to risk their reputation with unsubstantiated claims and these businesses are more likely to have the in-house expertise and resources to properly verify their on-pack claims.  It’s the smaller food companies and newer brands that I worry about:  they are much more likely to find themselves inadvertently or knowingly selling ‘probiotic’ products that don’t live up to the marketing hype.

Cold Brew Coffee

Can you fake cold brew coffee?  Cold brewed coffee appears to be here to stay but it has a high price tag and would be easy to fake.  Could the average consumer taste the difference between conventional and cold-brew coffee?  I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t, especially when served icy cold or with lots of milk.  The production method for cold brewed coffee is slower than conventional brewing, which usually means more costly.  And that means food businesses could be tempted to cut a few corners.  Even hipster brands that build their messages around product authenticity can find themselves in a scandal when financial pressures increase, as was the case with an ultra-premium bean-to-bar chocolate brand recently.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few incidences of fraudulent claims about cold-brewed coffee hitting the headlines this year.

Cold brew coffee: hot food fraud risk

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Food Fraud; news of emerging issues

The macadamia nut tree out the back of my place is flowering and is covered with long, yellow flower spikes.  In a few months it will be covered in nuts.  However, in world markets right now there is a shortage of whole macadamia nut kernels.  While stocks remain scarce, macadamia products are at increased risk of fraudulent activity.  Whole kernels are less likely than other macadamia products to be affected by fraudulent adulteration, however they are still at risk of fraudulent misrepresentation of country of origin, packing date and organic status.  Nut pieces, meals and flours are at risk of fraudulent adulteration with cheaper fillers and substitutes.

Here are some other interesting issues in food fraud or potential food fraud from the last month:

Are breadfruit products an emerging fraud risk?  Breadfruit is a starchy tropical fruit that grows on large trees in the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean. Breadfruit flour is said to have huge potential as a gluten-free product and breadfruit could become the next ‘superfood’, but right now demand outstrips supply and new trees take 3 to 5 years to bear fruit.  If the marketing gurus succeed in making breadfruit the next big thing, it will attract a premium price in North America and Europe and gluten-free breadfruit flour could become an attractive target for fraud.  I will be watching this product closely to see how the situation develops.

breadfruit
Is breadfruit destined to be the next ‘superfood’?

Hairy crabs, a delicacy in parts of China, are in season now, with crabs from particular lakes being very highly prized and even more expensive than their counterparts from other lakes.  A crab-marketing group representing hunters from Yangcheng lake designed an anti-counterfeiting system based on bar-code technology for Yangcheng crabs.  Unfortunately, they discovered that sellers of crabs from other lakes were forging the anti-fraud bar-codes.   I predict this type of fraud to increase over the next few years as consumers come to expect and trust anti-counterfeit measures applied to expensive consumer items.

For more on these topics plus expert analysis of the food fraud risk profiles of hundreds of other food materials check out our food fraud risk information database.

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Authentic glaze, fake ice and false positives

It’s not exactly food fraud, in fact, it’s a fabulous case of mistaken identity for a genuine American delicacy; Krispy Kreme donuts.  These tasty treats caused plenty of trouble for Florida man Daniel Rushing after a police officer discovered flakes of donut glaze on the floor of his car after pulling him over for a minor traffic offence.  Unfortunately, the officer mistook the pieces of glaze for crystal meth.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Rushing man spent ten hours in jail after the officer performed two roadside drug tests on the sugary substances, which returned positive results for methamphetamine.  A state drug lab has since confirmed that it was a case of mistaken identity.  Rushing reported that although he had nothing to hide, he would “never let anyone search my car again”.