News

In 2020 to 2021, the CFIA tested a total of 525 samples for authenticity. Its targeted sampling yielded the following % of satisfactory results:

88.5% honey, 91.2% fish, 87.8% olive oil, 66.2% other expensive oils (such as, sesame seed oil, grapeseed oil, coconut oil, almond oil and others), and 92.9% spices.

Where the results were unsatisfactory, the CFIA took corrective or enforcement action, including products being removed from Canadian market, or their detention, destruction, or relabelling. In the case of honey for example, the following amounts of adulterated honey was prevented from entering the Canadian market.

• 142 kg of imported honey was voluntarily destroyed
• 17 800 kg were removed from Canada
• 10 963 cases and 5 barrels were detained

The results of the CFIA's report on food fraud are being used to inform future sampling and inspection strategies to better target foods that are more likely to be misrepresented.

Read the CFIA News Release or the full report giving all the results of the sampling.

This article, by one of our Food Authenticity Centres of Expertise, summaries the potential problems to the food supply chain to Western Europe as a result of the war in Ukraine, and in particular, the effects of exports from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

Ukraine is a major exporter of cereals especially wheat, sunflower oil, soyabean oil, soyabeans and soyabean cake, honey and dried pulses and legumes.

Russia is a major exporter of fish, cereals, sunflower oil and poultrymeat.

An assessment of impact and risks is given by commodity type.

Read the article here.

This artefactual field experiment explores consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) price premiums for fish products to avoid the risk and uncertainty of purchasing inauthentic produce.

The influence of subjective probabilistic beliefs, risk and ambiguity preferences is investigated. Participants’ WTP is elicited using experimental auctions, while behavioural factors are elicited using incentivised and incentive-compatible methods: the quadratic scoring rule and multiple price lists.

Results show that consumers are willing to pay a premium to avoid food fraud and purchase an authentic fish product. This premium is higher under uncertainty than risk, likely driven by ambiguity preferences which affect consumers’ purchasing under uncertainty.

Read full article.

Food Standards Scotland’s Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit (SFCIU) have highlighted four sectors as priorities, which have been targeted and continue to be targeted by criminals committing food fraud:-

- Red meat: fraudulently tagged livestock, stolen livestock, illegal slaughter and substitution of product, false declaration of origin or durability date.

- Fish: substitution by cheaper species or lower quality fish, misdescription of origin especially for salmon, import of illegally treated tuna, fraudulent use of official certification in UK, and impact of Brexit on Scottish supply chain.

- Shellfish: illegally harvested shellfish, misrepresentation of quality and origin of shellfish, falsification of registration and landing documents, and   use of modern slavery and exploitation for harvesting shellfish.

- Alcoholic drinks: counterfeit branded spirits and wine, import or smuggling of fake vodka, production of illicit alcohol, and import and use of material and equipment to produce imitation alcohol products.

Read the article here

Animal origin food products, including fish and seafood, meat and poultry, milk and dairy foods, and other related products play significant roles in human nutrition. However, fraud in this food sector frequently occurs, leading to negative economic impacts on consumers and potential risks to public health and the environment. Therefore, the development of analytical techniques that can rapidly detect fraud and verify the authenticity of such products is of paramount importance.

Traditionally, a wide variety of targeted approaches, such as chemical, chromatographic, molecular, and protein-based techniques, among others, have been frequently used to identify animal species, production methods, provenance, and processing of food products. Although these conventional methods are accurate and reliable, they are destructive, time-consuming, and can only be employed at the laboratory scale. On the contrary, alternative methods based mainly on spectroscopy have emerged in recent years as invaluable tools to overcome most of the limitations associated with
traditional measurements. The number of scientific studies reporting on various authenticity issues investigated by vibrational spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and fluorescence spectroscopy has increased substantially over the past few years, indicating the tremendous potential of these techniques in the fight against food fraud.

This manuscript reviews the state-of-the-art research advances since 2015 regarding the use of analytical methods applied to detect fraud in food products of animal origin, with particular attention paid to spectroscopic measurements coupled with chemometric analysis. The opportunities and challenges surrounding the use of spectroscopic techniques and possible future directions are also be discussed.

Read full paper here.

In a move that customers have labelled very fishy, the Chinese government has ruled that rainbow trout can now be labelled and sold as salmon.

The seemingly bizarre move comes after complaints earlier this year that rainbow trout was being mislabelled.

In May, media reported that much of what was sold as salmon in China was actually rainbow trout, to widespread consternation from fish-buyers.

But instead of banning vendors from deceiving their customers, the China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance (CAPPMA), which falls under the Chinese ministry of agriculture, has ruled that all salmonidae fish can now be sold under the umbrella name of “salmon”, reports the Global Times.

Rainbow trout and salmon are both salmonidae fish and look quite similar when filleted. However, salmon live in salt water and rainbow trout live in fresh water.

Read the full article.