This is the second FAN analysis this month, as the latest EU Agri-Food Suspicions report, for June 2026, has followed in quick succession from the May 2026 report. You can read all of the reports here.
As well as a marked increase in the absolute number of suspicions recorded, there has been a increasing trend in the relative numbers of suspicions relating to unlicensed trade or import (top-right green bubble). These primarily relate to products of animal origin but not exclusively - they include anything from biscuits to noodles. There were sometimes clear food safety risks - ranging from diversion of unfit meat, to harvesting from shellfish beds that had been closed due to algal toxin outbreaks, to repurposing of seeds (which could be pesticide-treated) for food use.
Unlicenced trade is often accociated with document or certification fraud. There were at least 3 suspicions of foods claiming an incorrect establishment license number.
Other suspicions that caught my eye:
- a continuing trend of "traditional" meat & seafood frauds - particularly bulking of frozen products with water, or bulking of processed foods such as sausages and kebab meat
- one case of a "natural" beetroot colour ingredient being, in fact Reactive Red 198
The report also flagged 3 cases of packaged foods being seized because the picture image was misleading (i.e. a more "premium" food than actually contained). FAN have not included this category in our analysis, but it is a reminder to all food manufacturers that their label compliance checks must include the entire artwork, not just the ingredient declaration and nutritionals.
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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