Food Fraud Advisors

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Food Fraud Alerts – top issues this month

Highlights from this month’s Food Fraud Report

Cheese buyback

In the USA, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is buying $20m worth of cheese in an attempt to improve prices.  The cheese will be given to food banks and pantries. read more

Cheese wheels on the shelves in diary production factory

Champagne doom

Champagne makers have warned of a looming shortage due to bad weather during the growing season, the worst in 60 years.  read more

Dairy prices turn a corner

Falling production and growing demand is said to be responsible for a  sudden sharp upturn (12.7%) in global dairy prices.  read more

Lead found in turmeric

Routine sampling by New York State (USA) food inspectors found high levels of lead in retail turmeric, leading to a recall of multiple brands in the USA.  read more

Spices and herbs in metal bowls and wooden spoons. Food and cuisine ingredients
Spices have long been susceptible to fraudulent adulteration

 

Allergenic adulteration of cumin

There has been a recall of cumin due to the presence of undeclared peanuts.  read more

Wheat markets in flux

Global wheat production volumes have smashed records for the fifth year in a row.  read more

 

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Food Fraud Survey

Have you ever been a victim of food fraud, either as a consumer or while working in the food industry?  It’s likely that at some point you have paid too much for a ‘premium’ product that was not exactly what it should have been.  Foods such as olive oil, organic products, fish and specialty beef products are commonly misrepresented to purchasers.  Take the food fraud survey to find out it you have been affected.

Take the survey

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A serial (cereal) offender is behind bars in Italy

News from Malta today tells the story of a serial food fraudster who has been detained over the export of counterfeit organic grains and oil seeds.  Malta Today reports that 350 000 tons of corn, soybeans, wheat, rapeseed (canola) and sunflower seeds worth €126 million and sold as organic over a period of six or more years probably weren’t organic at all.  Italian investigators found that the grains were grown in Moldova, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, certified as organic or bio by untrustworthy regulators in those countries and purchased by a Maltese company which then exported them to Italy.

The man behind the Maltese company is awaiting trial. Previously, he has been arrested over a shipment of GMO corn in 2014, implicated in counterfeit organic food scandals in 2011 and was tried for falsification of an invoice in 2010. Could we call him a cereal (serial) offender?

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Vulnerability assessments are a waste of time according to this investigator

Vulnerability assessments are a hot topic in food safety at the moment, with Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) food safety standards set to include requirements for documented food fraud vulnerability assessments in the near future.  Most food safety and food integrity experts believe that vulnerability assessments are an important first step towards preventing fraudulent foods from reaching consumers.   However, in an interview with Food Safety News, Mitchell Weinberg, food fraud investigator and CEO of Inscatech describes food fraud vulnerability assessments as “frankly… a little bit of a waste of time.”  Mr Weinberg says that a food fraud vulnerability assessment is essentially about recording what you already know.  He explains that if a business is sourcing a food ingredient from a developing country, they should already know that it is more likely to be affected by fraud than if sourced locally.  Likewise, high value and high volume materials are more attractive to fraudsters.  Weinberg tells the interviewer:

“Just use common sense, figure out where the problem is, check it out… trust but verify.“

Weinberg is right; creating documented risk assessments of any kind is simply an exercise in writing down what we already know.  And common sense should be at the core of any risk assessment.  So is there any value in a documented vulnerability assessment?  

Absolutely!

  • A documented assessment is a record of who thought of what and when they thought of it.  It is evidence that fraud has been considered; it can be used to check that common sense was used in that consideration.  It can be audited, reviewed and updated.  It can be shared.
  • The process of creating a documented assessment can serve as a prompt to identify gaps in knowledge and provide an incentive to ‘fill in the gaps’.
  • A documented vulnerability assessment can be used to transfer knowledge.  Weinberg says creating a written assessment is making a record of what you already know; that is exactly what is needed when the person who made the assessment changes jobs or has to explain supply chain risks to a stubborn Purchasing Manager.
  • Most food businesses manufacture hundreds of food products and many more hundreds of ingredients; comparing the vulnerability assessments of different products and materials is an effective way to prioritise fraud prevention actions.  While the ultimate aim is for no product to be compromised ever, we all have to start somewhere.

Read more about Vulnerability Assessments here.

To view the interview with Mitchell Weinberg, click here.