News

The UK National Food Crime Unit is asking food businesses to be alert to the fact
that adulterated saffron has been identified on the UK market.

Saffron sampling results have revealed adulteration through the addition of
synthetic colours in contravention of Regulation 1333/2008.

Issues have also been discovered around saffron not meeting the grade stated on packaging (Grades I, II or III) due to lower than required levels of colouring strength (expressed as Crocin).

Failed samples are the subject of ongoing enquiries in the UK and internationally.

ACTION RECOMMENDED
If you are purchasing saffron either to sell or to use within a further processed product, please be aware of the risk of adulteration. Consider the following advice:

1. Ensure that reputable suppliers are being used and are being reviewed in line with supplier approval policies.
2. Be conscious of product being supplied at a lower price than would be expected for the quality and grade of saffron being purchased. If you have any suspicions, ask your supplier for traceability documents including any analysis reports.

Read full alert.

A new vacancy for a Senior Prevention and Relationship Management Officer has arisen at the Food Standards Agency's National Food Crime Unit (NFCU).

You will lead and line manage a team ensuring delivery of Prepare, Prevent and Protect projects, enabling the NFCU to achieve the intended outcomes of its 4P strategic and tactical action plans. Working closely with the food industry, other regulatory partners and internal partners, within the NFCU and wider FSA, the team work to support identification and mitigation of known vulnerabilities and emerging threats and risks. You’ll nurture and encourage the team to develop and implement innovative methods and tactics, from conception to delivery, which protect food businesses and the public.

You'll be playing your part in keeping food safe and what it says it is, and protecting UK consumers from deceptive practices in the food sector. 

For further information / to apply: Senior Prevention and Relationship Management Officer - Civil Service Jobs - GOV.UK

The deadline is 3rd September 2023.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has this week launched its Food Crime Risk Profiling Tool, an online programme which allows companies to assess their vulnerabilities to criminality.

Using the tool allows businesses to assess themselves against a series of statements on topics, such as how they source materials and their supply methods, before being given an individual report at the end which will highlight areas of good practice as well including specific guidance on areas they may wish to improve on.

To support businesses through this process, FSS will be holding several free online workshops later this year to help develop opportunities to increase authenticity and improve food crime resilience – those who sign up to the tool will receive an invite to the workshops.

For more information and to sign up to the tool, visit: https://www.foodstandards.gov.scot/food-crime-risk-profiling-tool

The tool has also been added to the Tools_Guides_Reports part of our Food Fraud Prevention section.

The Food Authenticity Network is delighted to have been interviewed by Nick Hughes and be featured in this article in The Grocer that marks the tenth anniversary of the 2013 horsemeat issue, which rocked the food industry world-wide.

A decade on, there is widespread recognition that much of this trust has been rebuilt. Yet as we move into 2023, experts warn that a new perfect storm of factors is creating an ideal set of conditions for fraudsters to exploit. 

On the tenth anniversary of one of the industry’s darkest episodes, it’s timely to ask the question: is our food chain any safer from the risk of fraud?

“We have many more lines of defence [now],” says Emily Miles, CEO of the Food Standards Agency. “But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be another scandal [like horsemeat].”

Read the full article.

The Food Standards Agency's National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) has published a video on the types of food crime you might come across and how to report it.

The NFCU and partners tackle food crime every day to make sure food is safe to eat and is what it says it is.

NFCU colleagues work closely with the food industry to ensure that businesses are well-informed and prepared so they know how to spot food crime and stop it.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) is currently in the process of finalising an online risk profiling tool and guidance to support industry in preventing food crime. FSS is looking for businesses to be involved in the review stage of this initiative to ensure it supports industry and achieves its purpose.

Please see an invitation from Ron McNaughton, Head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit:

Food Crime Risk Profiling Tool (foodauthenticity.global)

Please contact foodcrime@fss.scot by 24th June if you would like to be part of the review.

This is Tenet's quarterly publication helping in house counsel and those from a science background assessing food safety keep up to date with current and emerging fraud related risks.

If you work in the food and drinks industry and take an interest in fraud and financial crime impact in the sector, please take a look at the 3rd issue of The Secret Ingredient.

The food sector is subject to illegal practices of various types such as adulteration or exploitation of labour. In the media and public discourse, this phenomenon is often associated to activities by organised crime groups. Drawing on a socio-legal empirical study on the perception and conceptualisation of food crime in English and Italian public institutions, this paper unpacks the involvement of organised crime and mafia-type actors in the food sector. Considering data collected through in-depth interviews with representatives of law enforcement and other public authorities, supported by documentary sources, this research points out that, from both an institutional perspective that narrowly conceptualises as food crime as food fraud, as well as from a wider perspective that addresses other practices happening in the food sector, organised crime is involved in food crime. By referring to the English and Italian cases, and by merging different bodies of literature, such as green criminology and enterprise theory, this article advocates for conceptual clarity when referring to the involvement of corporate crime, organised crime and mafia-type groups active in the food sector. In so doing, it presents and reflects upon ‘organised food crime’ as a new socio-legal category and highlights its policy outcomes.

Read open access paper.

The same author published another related paper in 2020:

Food Crime: A Review of the UK Institutional Perception of Illicit Practices in the Food Sector

Food offers highly profitable opportunities to criminal actors. Recent cases, from wine and meat adulteration to milk powder contaminations, have brought renewed attention to forms of harmful activities which have long occurred in the food sector. Despite several scandals over the last few decades, food has so far received scant criminological attention and the concept of food crime remains subject to different definitions. This article assesses regulations in the United Kingdom (UK) and UK authorities’ official reports published between 2013 and 2018 through a review of academic literature published in English. It charts the evolution of the food crime concept, its various meanings, and different harmful activities associated with food crime, which originate from unlawful acts and omissions. This article also points out that further criminological research needs to address the definitional issue of food crime and inform a more integrated policy approach by considering activities beyond food fraud and the protection of food safety.

Read open access paper:

Food crime is a key threat to food companies and consumers around the world. The cost to the global food industry for food fraud (which is only one type of crime) has been estimated at around EUR 30 billion every year, according to a 2018 report by the European Commission.

Many companies are making important efforts to reduce and prevent crime from happening across the supply chain and protect their customers and consumers everywhere.

In order to help the food sector to continue strengthening its efforts in preventing food crime, SSAFE has partnered with five leading experts to develop a free educational video series. Dr. John Spink, Dr. Chris Elliott, Dr. Wim Huisman, Jason Bashura and Neal Fredrickson take us on a journey through the world of food fraud, food defence and food integrity – what it is, what the issues are, what is being done, and what can be done in the future in order to help reduce and prevent food crime from occurring.

“Throughout history food crime has been a serious problem” says Adrian Sharp, President of SSAFE. “Working together with some of the best leading experts in the world on food fraud, food defence and food integrity SSAFE continues to help increase awareness and strengthen the food supply chain across the world. This lecture series should be very helpful and informative in helping the food industry, from farm to fork, reduce food crime for a better future.”

This free video series, which can be accessed through the SSAFE website (www.ssafe-food.org), will help people working across the food sector better understand what food crime is, the different types of crime that may occur, and what a food business can do about it. Through a broad series of short videos these global experts share their decades worth of knowledge and experience to help strengthen food supply around the world.

Dr. Chris Elliott says “The SSAFE Food Crime Prevention Series is the first of its kind and I hope that both industry and government agencies will find the videos informative and helpful in combatting the growing menace of criminal activity in our global food system.”

This video series complements other important tools from SSAFE such as the Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment tool developed in 2016 available through the 'Tools' page of the Food Authenticity Network's Food Fraud Mitigation section. This tool (available for free in ten languages) enables any food company to self-assess their vulnerability to food fraud. The tool has been a great success with 40,000+ downloads and more than 7,500 online assessments completed across 70+ countries.

In addition to these tools, SSAFE will be launching a free Food Safety Culture assessment tool this summer. Please visit the SSAFE website next month (April 2021) for further information.

The SSAFE Food Crime Prevention Lecture Series has also been added to the 'Guidance' page of the Food Authenticity Network's Food Fraud Mitigation section.

Experts Ron McNaughton, head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit (SFCIU), at Food Standards Scotland, and Chris Elliott, professor of food security at Queen's University Belfast and director of the Institute for Global Food Safety, took part in a joint question and answer interview tackling a variety of food crime issues.

The UK National Food Crime Unit has launched a new newsletter. 

This newsletter is intended to keep you informed of what the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) believe to be the current issues that are affecting the food industry. It is aimed at all sectors. It aims to improve awareness of significant or new trends in the food industry in order to strengthen the overall response to food crime.

The first edition includes articles on:

• Covid-19
• Theft of Meat
• European Distribution Fraud
  (EDF)
• Food Service Sector
• Cannabis edibles - THC laced sweets
• Shellfish allergy triggered by straws
• Mass culling of birds

If you want to receive copies of the NFCU's Food Crime Newsletters then sign up at NFCU.Outreach@food.gov.uk. or become a Member of the Food Authenticity Network for free and they will be emailed, when available, with our Monthly Highlights Emails.

The Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) and Food Standards Scotland’s Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit (SFCIU) have published an assessment of food crime threats to the UK.

The Food Crime Strategic Assessment examines areas of the food supply chain which may be vulnerable to food crime, as well identifying emerging threats which need to be addressed. 

The assessment found that most food crime relates to two broad activities – either selling something of little or no value to the food chain as edible and marketable, or selling passable food, drink or feed as a product with greater volume or more desirable attributes. In practice, this could include replacing ingredients with cheaper and inferior materials, falsely extending use-by dates, or deliberately marketing unsafe products as being fit for human consumption. 

The NFCU have identified priority areas of work for this year in their control strategy. These areas include combatting the selling of dangerous non-foods sold for human consumption, preventing illegal shellfish entering the food chain, and increasing understanding of the use of online platforms to facilitate food crime. The Unit will continue its work with local authorities, law enforcement agencies and the food industry to prevent and protect against incidences of food crime and take action when they occur. 

The SSFCIU has also published its Control Strategy 2020/21, which outlines the food crime priorities and actions being taken to prevent food crime, detect and deter criminality and prosecute offenders. The Control Strategy looks to manage the threat of food crime and set out a clear path in what is a complex and challenging area. This strategy is informed by the UK’s Food Crime Strategic Assessment which FSS developed jointly with Food Standards Agency (FSA). This work assessed information and intelligence from a range of sources and was supported by contributions from partner agencies and industry.

Further information can be found here.

Rachel Gullaksen, Sean Daly and Malcolm Burns (from left to right) looking at multispectral imaging applications for food authenticity

The Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) aims to help protect businesses and consumers from fraudulent supply chains through building relationships with industry, delivering crime prevention initiatives and conducting thorough, proportionate investigations where necessary. This is to support the Food Standard Agency to deliver its overarching strategy that “food is safe and is what it says it is”.

Following an increase to its budget, the NFCU has seen significant extension of the unit’s capabilities and remit in terms of its investigation and crime disruption capabilities and the prevention of food crime. As part of its outreach programme and as a follow-up to a meeting between Darren Davies, Head of the NFCU and the Government Chemist, Julian Braybrook and Selvarani Elahi in May 2019, colleagues from the NFCU visited LGC.

Selvarani Elahi gave a presentation on the Food Authenticity Network, highlighting the benefits of closer collaboration between this growing global network and the NFCU, both of which were created by the UK government to address the recommendations of the Elliott Review.

NFCU colleagues were taken on a tour of LGC’s National Measurement Laboratories where LGC staff demonstrated research on a range of technologies from point-of-use screening to confirmatory methods capable of combating food crime or food fraud .

The National Food Crime Unit intercepted consignments of coconut water imported to the UK via the Port of Felixstowe earlier this year and analysed 12 samples. Of those, seven tested positive for sugar from external sources, such as sugar derived from starch, sugar cane or maize.

In total, nearly 400 tonnes of coconut water were seized or removed from the market, though the FSA stressed none of the products posed a risk to public health.

Read the full article from The Grocer here.

The National Food Crime Unit has today launched Food Crime Confidential. This is a reporting facility where anyone with suspicions about food crime can report them safely and in confidence, over the phone or through email. The facility is particularly targeted at those working in or around the UK food industry.

The FSA’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) works with partners to protect people from serious criminal activity that impacts the safety or authenticity of food and drink they consume.

Food crime involves dishonesty at any stage in the production or supply of food. It is often complex and likely to be seriously detrimental to consumers, businesses or the general public interest.

NFCU would like to receive any information relating to suspected dishonesty involving food, drink or animal feed. In addition to identifying and being able to tackle specific instances of food crime, such information will help us learn more about the circumstances that make offending possible.

For further information on this service.