food fraud (188)

Researchers at the University of Nebraska carried out an interesting robust study to examine how information about food fraud incidents affects consumers’ valuation of products. Specifically, the study examined:

- changes in consumers’ valuation of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) after they received information about food fraud,

- how information about food fraud attributable to one country affects valuation for products from other countries, and

- how information about food fraud affects the valuation of olive oils in different price segments.

   Read the article at: consumer EVOO study

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Blockchain technology has the potential to transform the food industry and provide a new way of dealing with food safety and food fraud. This article by Sterling Crew is taken from his article in March edition of Food Science and Technology (free on line for IFST members). It examines its application to enhance transparency, tracking and traceability in the food supply chain, and considers how it could help to build consumer confidence and  give a more secure food supply system.

Read the article here

 

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Food Fraud News, 2018 February: This is an update of our MSU Food Fraud Initiative Activities.

Mission: MSU’s Food Fraud Initiative, an interdisciplinary activity focused on detecting and deterring this public health and economic threat.

Summary for February 2018: Our “MOOC” programs expanded to include a new MSU Food DEFENSE Audit Guide MOOC. Also, we’re excited that for 2018 we have 12 presentations scheduled so far including international locations in Japan, Australia, and Trinidad & Tobago.

Next Month – Education &Training: http://foodfraud.msu.edu/mooc/

1.      FOOD DEFENSE AUDIT GUIDE MOOC (MOOCD) <<NEW>>

a.      2018, March 15 & 22 – 10am ET

2.      FOOD FRAUD AUDIT GUIDE MOOC (MOOCA)

a.      2018, March 6 & 13 – 1pm ET

3.      FOOD FRAUD OVERVIEW MOOC 2018 (MOOC1)

a.      On-demand lectures starting March 30

4.      Graduate Courses, Online, Registration open for Summer Semester: http://foodfraud.msu.edu/resources/programs-courses/

a.      “Packaging for Food Safety” VM/PKG 841

b.      “Product Protection & Anti-Counterfeit Strategy” VM/PKG/CJ 840

Next Month – Outreach & Presentations: http://foodfraud.msu.edu/resources/events/

1.      2018/04/15- Presentation, Food Fraud Prevention for Spices, Annual Meeting, American Spice Trade Association ASTA, Naples, Florida

2.      2018/03/26- Presentation, Food Fraud Terminology Survey, GMA Science Forum, Grocery Manufacturers Association, DC

3.      2018/03/12- Presentation, Food Fraud Audit Guide, FSSC Webinar Series, AM for Europe and Eastern USA, Webinar

4.      2018/03/06 – Moderator, Food Fraud Prevention, GFSI Annual Conference, Tokyo, Japan

5.      2018/03/06 – Presenter, Food Fraud Prevention Strategy Update, GFSI Annual Conference, Tokyo, Japan

 

Publications – Recent Annual: http://foodfraud.msu.edu/resources/publications/

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Following updates to food safety certification standards and publication of new U.S. regulatory requirements, the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention and collaborators undertook a project to (i) develop a scheme to classify food fraud–related adulterants based on their potential health hazard and (ii) apply this scheme to the adulterants in a database of 2,970 food fraud records. The classification scheme was developed by a panel of experts in food safety and toxicology from the food industry, academia, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Categories and subcategories were created through an iterative process of proposal, review, and validation using a subset of substances known to be associated with the fraudulent adulteration of foods. Once developed, the scheme was applied to the adulterants in the database. The resulting scheme included three broad categories: 1, potentially hazardous adulterants; 2, adulterants that are unlikely to be hazardous; and 3, unclassifiable adulterants. Application of the scheme to the 1,294 adulterants in the database resulted in 45% of adulterants classified in category 1 (potentially hazardous). Twenty-seven percent of the 1,294 adulterants had a history of causing consumer illness or death, were associated with safety-related regulatory action, or were classified as allergens. These results reinforce the importance of including a consideration of food fraud–related adulterants in food safety systems.

Read the abstract at: Adulterant hazard classification

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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.

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The legislation seeks to provide the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Organic Program with between $15m and $20m a year from 2018 to 2023 to upgrade compliance and enforcement actions in the US and abroad. An additional $5m would also be provided to improve tracking of international organic trade and data collection systems to ensure full traceability of imported products.

The proposed legislation follows a report last month, which found the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (has oversight of the National Organic Program) was lacking in its control and oversight of imported products labelled as organic and concluded that some fraudulent and mislabelled products could be slipping through customs into the US.

Read full article here.

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Confectionery containing fair trade or organic cocoa and sugar carry one of the highest risks of adulteration and mislabelling in the food & drink industry, according to Ecovia Intelligence.

Read the full article here.

Visit our Food Fraud Mitigation page for more information about services, reports and guides.

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The ease of adulterating spices combined with the complexity of fraud detection makes the condiments highly vulnerable to fraud, a scientific study has found. Published in the journal Food Control, the research examined fraud vulnerabilities of eight companies in the spices supply chain using the SSAFE food fraud vulnerability assessment tool, which comprises 50 indicators categorised in opportunities, motivations, and control measures to provide a fraud vulnerability profile.
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Discover the role of the Government Chemist in combating food fraud, learn the outcomes of referee cases, and read about the research carried out in 2016 under the Government Chemist function.

Highlights:

Food safety: evaluated levels of carcinogenic toxins in seeds, nuts and spices

Food authenticity: assessed claims for the geographical origin and botanical source of honey

Allergens: detected sulphites in food containing interfering ingredients such as garlic

Quantifying protein allergens: carried out research into the quantification of proteins extracted from processed food for immunoassay and mass spectrometry analysis

Foresight and future work:  looked to the future to identify food safety and authenticity related challenges and how best to prepare for them. 

Save the date: Government Chemist conference 2018
The 2018 Government Chemist Conference will take place in London on 13-14 June. Further information about the conference will be disseminated in the autumn, watch your inbox for details.

Get in touch
If you have any questions about the work of the Government Chemit, or about food safety and/or authenticity related issues, email us at: governmentchemist@lgcgroup.com or have a look at our website: www.gov.uk/governmentchemist 

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Member States and the Commission have agreed a raft of measures to reinforce action following the fipronil scandal including the possible creation of  a Food Safety Officer in each country. Fipronil an insecticide used to control cockroaches, fleas and ants, but is illegal for animals intended for the food chain.  It was found on Dutch and Belgian farms and 26 Member States and 23 other countries have been affected by its contamination in eggs and egg products. The Commission stressed that this was not a food safety problem but one of food fraud.

Read the article at: Action after fipronil incident

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In Pursuit of Food System Integrity

This academic paper presents a conceptual and analytical framework for preventing food fraud informed by a situational understanding of the nature of the activities and behaviours involved in the fraud. By integrating models of enterprise with models of in-place preventative action, we can gain a fuller theoretical account of food frauds and how we can prevent them. The paper uses various olive oil fraud investigations to develop its arguments.

Read the full paper at: In Pursuit of Food System Integrity

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This post-graduate course is the result of a partnership between the Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS) at Queen's University Belfast and multinational analytical laboratory instrument and software company Waters Corporation. It offers professionals the chance to learn remotely on a part-time basis from renowned experts to increase their knowledge of the threats to feed and food compromising food security, and also about the techniques and methods which can be used to confirm food safety and integrity. Topics include concerns around food fraud, authenticity and traceability, the links between chemical contaminants and human and animal health, the biological hazards and threats posed by animal feed and food, the various technologies used to enable rapid and early detection of food safety issues, and the current and future global food legislation needed to ensure and maintain sustainable food safety production. The course is currently accepting applications for October 2017 and February 2018 start dates.

Read the article and see a video at: On-line Masters in Food Fraud

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Sea-Pac Owner Prosecuted for £200,000 Fish Fraud

Sea-Pac owner Alistair Thompson, 70, from Lonmay, Aberdeenshire, admitted fraud at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, and has been prosecuted and given the maximum number of unpaid community hours. He arranged for Shetland Products and Fraserburgh Freezing and Cold Storage labels to go on salmon, because they were approved for export to Russia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Read the article at: Sea-Pac Fish Fraud

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Oceana, a nonprofit seafood conservation group, did a study back in 2015 and found that 43 percent of the salmon they tested was actually mislabeled.

Most of that salmon fraud ― we’re talking 69 percent of it ― mislabeled farmed salmon as being wild-caught salmon, which is typically more revered. That means you could be paying for a wild-caught Pacific salmon filet, when in fact you’re getting Atlantic farmed salmon.

Other fraud in the salmon market occurs when “one type of wild salmon is substituted for another, like the cheaper chum salmon or pink salmon being sold as a more expensive salmon like coho or sockeye,” Kimberly Warner, chief scientist at Oceana, told HuffPost.

Most of the fraud happens at restaurants.

Oceana found that most of the fraud from their study occurred at restaurants (67 percent vs. 20 percent at big chain retailers). Smaller grocery markets were also often guilty of salmon fraud. Big chain retailers are your safest bet for getting the salmon you actually want. But it isn’t always restaurants or markets pulling a fast one on consumers. 

Sometimes the restaurants and retailers are the victims.

“What we’re dealing with is two different types of fraud,” Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute told HuffPost. “One is species substitution, where the retailer or restaurant is the victim. They’re being defrauded because the person selling them the salmon tells them it’s one thing when it’s not. The other side of it is menu mislabeling or just mislabeling in a retail establishment, and that’s when they say it’s wild-caught salmon but they know it’s farmed salmon. So there’s two distinctly different things, but they’re both fraud.”

Read full article

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The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) has published a Food and Agribusiness Roadmap to which identifies  key growth areas for Australia's food exports.

The document was produced in collaboration with FIAL and names climate change, geopolitical instability and technological advances among the primary challenges facing Australian agribusinesses in the coming decades and warns that previous successes cannot be sustained through productivity improvements alone.

Five key growth enablers arose from industry consultation, each requiring a unique mix of science and technology investment, business action and ecosystem assistance:

1) Traceability and provenance

2 ) Food safety and biosecurity

3) Market intelligence and access

4) Collaboration and knowledge sharing

5) Skills.

The report states that food fraud is estimated to cost around 40 billion U.S. dollars per year worldwide, with the United States (29.8%), China (13.6%) and India (12.6%) being the largest sources of fraudulent production. However, the report also highlights breakthroughs in tracking RFID chips, barcodes and QR codes in food labels and predicts that these will help address some of industry's concerns in traceability and provenance.

Read Roadmap.

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A suspected fake vodka factory has been raided in Aintree by HMRC, with almost 2,000 litres of potentially toxic alcohol seized.

People drinking counterfeit alcohol are "risking their lives and denying tax payers millions of pounds in unpaid duty that should be spent on vital public services".

Read the full story at:

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The Spanish Guardia Civil, in coordination with Europol, has dismantled an organised crime group that was trading horsemeat in Europe that was unfit for human consumption. During the investigation, Guardia Civil was able to locate the Dutch businessman related to the 2013 Irish case of the beefburgers containing horse meat
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"EU-China-Safe" is a new EU Horizon 2020 project in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology worth €10m.  The Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, will lead the project, one of world’s largest food safety projects. The aim of the project is to reduce food fraud and improve food safety through focusing on improving food legislation, food inspection and increasing access to information across both continents. The project has 33 partners, including 15 in the EU and 18 in China, who are key players in the food industry, research organisations and governments across two of the world’s largest trading blocks.

Read the Press Release: EU-China-Safe Project

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