Here is our regular monthly graphic from the EC Reports of Agri-Food Fraud Suspicions, showing a rolling 3-month trend. These EU reports are a useful tool for estimating fraud incidents, signposted on FAN’s Reports page. They can be found here.
Our graphical analysis contains some subjectivity in the interpretation of the report data. In order to show consistent trends we have excluded cases which appear to be unauthorised sale but no intent to mislead consumers of the content/ingredients of a food pack (e.g. unapproved food additives, novel foods), 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.
The absolute count of incidents are creeping up a little but are generally fairly steady. The split of incidents between different categorisations is also fairly consistent over time, with a significant number relating to falsified or unlicenced trade in high risk food (illegal operators, missing or falsified health certificates, attempts at illegal import) and relating to falsified or missing traceability documentation.
Another consistent theme is underweight premium ingredient content in processed food, generally (but not always) the meat or seafood content. Often this is associated with excess glaze or water in frozen food.
Although we do not count unapproved (but declared on-pack) additives in these graphs, it is noteworthy that there has been a consistent rise in recent months in the number of regulatory siezures of food (often confectionary) imported into the EU that contains titanium dioxide (an additive permitted in many regions of the world, but now banned in the EU). This increased enforcement activity may account for some of the general insight reports, based on analysis ot EU Agri-Food Suspicions, that "food fraud incidents are increasing".
The EC Monthly reports are only one source of information. A comparison of the many different information sources now available, and the complementary insight that can be gained from using a variety of information sources, is given in an earlier blog this year.
