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Smart packaging to fight wine counterfeits

Wine bottle caps that contain Near Field Communication (NFC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips, which can be scanned by consumers, have been developed for counterfeit protection for premium wines. The caps, which are tamper-evident, prevent refill-style counterfeiting, in which fraudsters refill empty genuine bottles of premium wines with cheaper fakes and sell them for tens of thousands of dollars.

Consumers can use their smart phone to scan the cap to verify authenticity and provenance, and to confirm the bottle hasn’t been opened or altered.

 

Source:

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/drink/aussie-fights-back-against-fakes-ripping-70bn-from-wine-industry/news-story/7173f047daa93cc526ea6cfe1f78ab04

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

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Genuine article test: fake chocolate brand

A brand owner whose Dubai-style chocolates were faked by fraudsters has published pictures of real and counterfeit packages for consumers, so they can distinguish between real and counterfeit versions of their popular confectionery.

The counterfeit version failed to carry the correct allergen warnings about the presence of nuts.

Real and fake chocolate packaging sits side by side.
The brand owner published images with red highlights showing the differences between their packs and the counterfeits. Photo: Le Damas, via The National

The counterfeits were one of three brands of Dubai-style chocolate that were recalled in the United Kingdom in August due to the presence of undeclared peanuts, almonds, cashews, and walnuts.

At the time of the recall, the brand owner told news outlets that the affected products had not been manufactured by them or with their authorisation, saying the allergen-containing bars were counterfeits, made to mimic their products. Retailers had received the products from a mysterious trading company that was uncontactable at the time of the recall.

The company, Le Damas, told The National “We are aware of reports of potential counterfeit products being investigated by the UK Food Standards Agency and are co-operating fully with the authorities,” and said it takes “the quality, safety and authenticity of our chocolates very seriously”, and that its products are made “under strict quality controls and comply with international food safety standards”.

Read more on the suspected counterfeiting in the Dubai chocolate article in Issue 204 of The Rotten Apple.

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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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

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Fraud Risks for Cocoa and Confectionery Businesses

Chocolate’s supply chain is vulnerable to changes in weather, farming practices, and global trade networks. It is a truly global product, with the beans mostly grown in developing nations and processed into chocolate in wealthy nations.

Supply chain challenges include problems with cultivation, trade, sustainability, and compliance.

Threats to production

In recent years, the combined effects of extreme weather events, tree diseases and climate change in the world’s biggest cocoa-growing regions have severely impacted yields.

Cocoa farmers are reportedly abandoning their trees or choosing not to replace ageing trees as the crop becomes less profitable due to rising production costs and declining yields.

In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, prolonged droughts, unpredictable rainfall, and increased plant diseases like swollen shoot disease have made cocoa farming unprofitable for many, leading farmers to leave their plantations or switch to alternative crops.

In Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer, gold mining is now impacting cocoa production and taking over fertile land once used for cocoa growing.

The area of land used for growing cocoa is decreasing in Ghana. Data source: FAO.org

 

The Swiss media outlet Swissinfo reported in 2022 that cocoa farmers were selling their land to illegal gold miners, with swathes of farmland transformed into wastelands dotted with piles of clay contaminated with mercury, a by-product of gold extraction.

In the same year, a survey by the Ghanaian cocoa board revealed that 19,000 hectares of cocoa plantations had been lost, taken over or damaged by illegal gold mining.

With recent large increases in the price of gold and more problems with cocoa production due to disease and climate change, there is increasing recognition that more cocoa farmland will be lost to mining in 2026..

Cocoa futures (in USD per tonne) reached an all-time high in April 2024 and remain at more than 3 times the average price in 2023. Chart: Tradingeconocmis.com

 

With production declining, cocoa prices are rising. They increased by 25% in the two years to 2024.

Prices have since stabilised somewhat, but cocoa futures today are still more than three times higher than they were in 2021 – 2023.

Read more: 🍏The surprising link between illegal gold mining and chocolate 🍏

Threats to trade and compliance

Chocolate has always been considered an at-risk product for unethical labour practices, particularly in West Africa, which supplies around 60 to 70% of the world’s cocoa. Structural poverty, low farm-gate prices, and lack of bargaining power among farmers create conditions where forced labor, debt bondage, and child trafficking can occur to meet demand and maintain profitability.

Estimates indicate that over 1.5 million children are involved in child labor on cocoa farms in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, with many engaged in hazardous work, and there have been documented cases of both child and adult workers being subjected to exploitative or slave-like conditions in other cocoa-producing countries as well.

In 2023, the commodities trader Cargill was ordered to pay more than $120,000 by a Brazilian court after prosecutors alleged it did not know the extent of child labour in its Brazilian cocoa supply chains because it purchases from hundreds of producers, co-operatives and merchants. Cargill denied the allegations.

In 2021, Hershey and the Rainforest Alliance were sued for false advertising in the US, with Hershey accused of turning a blind eye to child labour in their supply chain and the Rainforest Alliance accused of being unable to prevent or even account for it.

Certification schemes like Rainforest Alliance and FairTrade are supposed to give assurance of ethical work practices in the production of the certified foods, but their efficacy has been questioned.

Researchers who reviewed the ability of schemes like FairTrade to assure child-labour-free processes in 2018 were told by a certifier “We are working with around 11,800 cocoa farmers, so we have not been able to visit any farms as of now”. Instead, they relied on farmers’ cooperatives to verify the working standards at farms.

The cooperatives receive a premium for certified cocoa, compared to uncertified cocoa, so self-reporting about their farmers’ compliance with certification standards for labour practices is problematic.

In 2025, the bigger concern with compliance and sustainability in cocoa is related to the coming enforcement of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Under these rules, due to be enforced from December 2025, cocoa and chocolate products imported into the EU must be proven to be deforestation-free, meaning the land used for cocoa production has not been deforested after 2020.

The importer must provide geolocation data, traceability to farm level, and comprehensive documentation at multiple points in the supply chain.

In West Africa, the major growing region, there are significant differences between the way beans are regulated and priced between the two largest producers, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.

Some cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire sell their beans to traffickers who smuggle them out of the country to be resold in places such as Guinea and Liberia, where they can fetch a higher price than the government-mandated prices in their country. In 2024, 150,000 tonnes of Ivorian cocoa beans were said to have been illegally exported in this way.

Threats to forests

In 2024, a media outlet in France reported that rules and checks implemented by the Côte d’Ivoire government and designed to prevent deforestation had resulted in cocoa farmers leaving the country and setting up plantations in neighbouring Liberia instead.

Liberia, they say, has “an almost total lack of monitoring”, making it attractive for farmers who grow beans on newly deforested land there, before moving the beans back into Cote d’Ivoire to avoid traceability checks. Tens of thousands of cocoa farmers have reportedly crossed the border already, threatening thousands of hectares of virgin forest.

Chocolate and food fraud

With supply chains both complicated and threatened by multiple supply-demand imbalances and uncertainties, it’s no surprise that cocoa is extremely vulnerable to food fraud, with cocoa beans claimed to be organic, fair trade and ethically or sustainably sourced the most at-risk for fraud.

Fraud in cocoa beans can take the form of theft, smuggling, misrepresentation of fairtrade/rainforest status, false organic claims or misrepresentation of geographical origin; as well as simpler frauds such as adding rocks or sticks to bags of beans to increase their weight.

The EUDR, which includes significant traceability requirements and penalties for cocoa beans from recently deforested land, creates significant pressure on cocoa bean producers and traders to falsify bean origin and traceability data to make beans appear to have originated in non-deforested or ‘low-risk’ designated areas.

There is significant smuggling of cocoa beans between West African countries, due to price differences between countries, and this confounds traceability attempts.

In addition to fraud in cocoa beans, manufactured chocolate also has food fraud challenges.

Counterfeit chocolate – chocolate products packaged to look like premium brands but made without the permission of the brand owner – is perhaps the most commonly reported type of fraud in chocolate.

A notorious example of counterfeit chocolate is ‘Wonka’ bars, which periodically resurface in the United Kingdom. The Wonka brand is owned by Ferrero, which hasn’t sold Wonka chocolate bars in the United Kingdom for years.

The fake bars are produced or repackaged by unregistered businesses or individuals with no regard for hygiene or labeling regulations, making them potentially unsafe to eat, particularly for people with food allergies due to undeclared allergens. Incidents have included unhygienic manufacturing conditions, incorrect or missing ingredient lists, and the use of fake business addresses on packaging.

Dubai-style chocolate products have also been counterfeited, including some that had to be recalled due to the presence of undeclared peanuts, almonds, cashews, and walnuts.

Chocolate confectionery has been affected by counterfeit-style food fraud

 

Other frauds that have been unmasked include an ‘artisan’ producer in Italy who was allegedly buying industrially produced Easter chocolates, discarding the wrapping and then reselling them as ‘own production’ (i.e., artisanal); and smuggling operations.

In January 2025, a woman was caught in Germany with 460 bars of chocolate concealed in her luggage after an international flight. Customs officials suspect the chocolate bars were being imported for commercial sale, because of the large number of bars and because chocolate of that type had been made popular on TikTok, with each bar fetching around 25 euros.

The bars had no ingredient or allergen information on their packs, posing a health risk to consumers. If successful, the smuggling would have resulted in the woman evading more than 330 euros of import duties.

In February 2025, authorities in Europe discovered chocolate from the United Arab Emirates and Turkiye made with hydrogenated palm oil instead of cocoa fat, containing undeclared colourants and with a higher fat content than declared.

And in July 2025, Dubai-style chocolate from Turkiye was found to contain undeclared colourants (green mulberry leaf, brilliant blue FCF (E 133)) in Dubai chocolate.

It’s likely these frauds are just the tip of the iceberg. I estimate there are many instances of inauthentic claims made about artisanal and boutique chocolate products in wealthy countries. ‘Single origin’ chocolate, organic chocolate and fair trade chocolate products are moderately likely to be affected by inaccurate claims due to problems in their supply chains or intentional deception by the brand owner.

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