Both the August and September EU AgriFood Suspicion Reports have been published since the last time we collated our 3-month rolling analyses. So this blog covers two reports in one. A 12-month trend will also be included in our November 2026 Newsletter, to be issued soom. My apologies for the lag since our July analysis. You can read all of the EU Agrifood Suspicion reports here.
Suspicions that caught my eye in September's report
- the apparant increased suspicions of undeclared preservatives seems sustained. This includes the undeclared use of nitrites in frozen fish, something I have not come accross before.
- undeclared irradiation also included frozen fish, the first time I can remember this category being under suspicion
- the apparent increase in honey suspicions is due to the phasing of reporting (publication of an EU-wide surveillance report)
- fraudulently extended shelf lives has been seen as a risk for a long time - this month, investigators found evidence of intent in at least two cases
- a significant proportion of missing/false documents are linked to confirmed chill-chain abuse, introducing food safety risk
These EU AgriFood Suspicions reports are only one information source, presenting one approach to estimating fraud frequency. There are many other approaches, each looking at different data for different purposes. An overview can be found on FAN's "Incident Trends" page.
Our interpretation of the Agrifood suspicion reports is subjective. In order to show consistent trends we have excluded cases which appear to be unauthorised sale but with no intent to mislead consumers (e.g. unapproved food additives, novel foods which are declared on pack), we have excluded unauthorised health claims on supplements, and we have excluded residues and contaminants above legal limits. We have grouped the remaining incidents into crude categories. Our analysis is intended only to give a high-level overview
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