Food Fraud Advisors

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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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Verifying traceability; MSC certified seafood passes the test

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has published a report describing the results of a DNA survey on MSC certified fish from 16 countries.

Businesses that handle MSC certified sustainable seafood are required to comply with the MSC Chain of Custody Standard to ensure that they have effective traceability systems in place.  This helps to ensure that the consumer receives fish that are from sustainable fisheries, as promised by the MSC sustainable seafood label.  MSC conducts a survey every two years to verify the effectiveness of the standard and to ensure that distributors, processors and retailers trading in MSC certified sustainable seafood are complying with the standard.

fish species fraud

The results of the latest survey are really positive.  The MSC sampled fish and fish products carrying the blue MSC certified label from 16 countries.  Of the 256 samples tested, only one of those was identified as being mislabelled.  Upon further investigation MSC found that the mislabelled ‘Southern rock sole’ was in fact ‘Northern rock sole’; it was an accidental misidentification of two closely related species, rather than a deliberate fraud.  So it seems that the MSC Chain of Custody Standard is working really well across the world.

Interestingly, the final pages of the report include a discussion about how the results compare with similar surveys conducted by other organisations.  Those other surveys included species testing of many fish types, within many countries, mostly from retail outlets.  The levels of mislabelled fish species were generally low in Europe, with more than 90% being of the samples being accurately labelled.  The only countries that had less than 70% accuracy were Belgium, USA, South Africa and Canada.  Sadly, the Canadian results were the poorest, with less than 60% of samples in that survey being accurately labelled.   The Canadian results were also the oldest, being from 2011, with most of the European results from 2015.  Perhaps seafood labelling in Canada has improved in the last five years, just as it has in Europe.

 

 

 

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Fish mislabelling; malicious fraud or sloppy supply chains?

Nice one, Food Standards Scotland.

What looked at first to be a number of cases of deliberate fraud was given some sensible attention and analysis by Food Standards Scotland (FSS), with unexpected results.  The organisation surveyed fish products supplied to their public sector food outlets, including hospitals and schools, to get a snapshot of the degree of species mislabelling. Of the 264 samples tested, around 6% of those (15) were mislabelled.

Any mislabelling is a breach of trust and a breach of food laws, but a result of 6% is relatively low and not likely to have a large economic impact.  Nevertheless, FSS investigated each of the incidences, retested products and spoke to the suppliers directly.

 

food fraud definition

Product labelled as haddock was the type most often found have been mislabelled during the survey, with ‘haddock’ found to be another fish species in 8 of 50 samples (16%).  As you would expect when considering fish species fraud, the most common substitute for haddock was a cheaper fish, whiting, the two types of fillets having similar appearance, flavour and texture.  Interestingly, however, almost half of all the ‘fraudulent’ samples were in fact an expensive fish (haddock) mislabelled as a cheaper species (whiting or coley).  Those results are obviously not ones you would expect to find when investigating fish fraud, and they are unlikely to be the result of any deliberate attempt to gain an economic advantage.

To the credit of the FSS they uncovered the cause of the mislabelling for most of the incidences; suppliers of the mislabelled fish admitted that they sometimes had trouble identifying incoming block fillets.  Some also admitted that they were not adequately separating or labelling different fish species during processing, handling and packing operations.  The suppliers in question have implemented improvements and have requested better labelling of their suppliers to prevent future occurrences; good news for the Scottish seafood industry.

More information and a copy of the report can be found here

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Traceability myth #3: Traceability equals authenticity

Traceability in the food supply chain leads to authentic food: it’s a myth.  In this third and final look at common misconceptions about traceability, I examine the links between traceability and authenticity of food.

Traceability can be difficult with a complex food, but it’s not impossible.  At the simplest level it is about knowing where every ingredient in a food product has come from and being able to identify the ingredients in each batch of your product to their own individual lots.  If you are a food business that has managed to achieve a transparent supply chain then in addition to basic traceability you will also know the sources of each of your suppliers and their suppliers, resulting in a ‘trail’ that leads all the way back to the farm or fishing boat.

Knowing where your ingredients have come from and being able to trace them back to your suppliers is a great start when it comes to protecting the authenticity of your finished product.  Knowing more about your supplier’s suppliers can also give a food business peace of mind when assessing the risk of receiving fraudulent materials.  Unfortunately, though, even within a completely transparent supply chain there can be opportunities for fraudulent adulteration, substitution or misrepresentation of food materials.

Take for example a bottle of virgin olive oil on the shelves of an inner city specialty grocer; the retailer purchases from a wholesaler who has a direct relationship with the olive processor which processes olives for a collective of farmers from a small olive growing region.  It’s a short supply chain and very transparent.  The retailer knows exactly where the oil comes from.  But that does not mean that the retailer knows what was going on at the oil processing facility.  Perhaps the most recent local harvest was very poor, perhaps the processor was under financial stresses and was tempted to dilute the pure local oil with cheaper bulk oil from another region or country.  Maybe the wholesaler was tempted to switch labels on some of his olive oil ranges to increase his profits…   Each of these scenarios result in fraudulently adulterated, diluted or substituted product.  If the retailer is selling the oil with regional provenance claims, organic claims or claims about special grades or standards of oil and the oil has been adulterated, diluted or substituted he is then unwittingly committing food fraud himself.  It’s an unpleasant scenario, and one that is unfortunately common.

Transparency has many benefits to supply chain management, and can provide some assurances against food fraud but it does not automatically guarantee authentic food ingredients and food products.

Traceability myth#1; consumers want transparency

Traceability myth #2; traceability is expensive