To meet growing consumer demands, our food chain has become global, dynamic, heterogeneous, and more complex in nature. Foods once considered exotic or seasonal are now available year-round in developed markets. Consumer demands extend to food products that have credence claims such as sustainably sourced, fair-trade, non-GMO, organic, vegan, vegetarian, and more. But how can consumers verify these credence claims and be protected from food fraud? The need for greater supply chain transparency to increase consumer trust in safe, nutritious and authentic foods has never been more profound. Yet, globalisation of the supply chain is not the primary reason for food fraud, which exists within sovereign nations and may be rampant within free trade zones. The question is whether current laws and regulations are adequate to protect consumers, or whether they create an environment of “blind trust” where food fraud can flourish.
food fraud (188)
INTELLItrace is one of the new projects commissioned in the Euro 12 million EU Project FoodIntegrity. It was discussed at the FoodIntegrity Conference in Parma 10-11 May. The lead partner in WP18 is University of Piemonte Orientale, and the other partners are Thermo Fisher Scientific, ICETA (PT), Mérieux NutriSciences, University of Stuttgart, and Istituto delle Scienze delle Preparazioni Alimentari (ISPA)
The main objective of this project is the development and validation of a comprehensive supervised or unsupervised protocol, that could be used to exhaustively process large data sets originated from untargeted analyses.This will hopefully contribute to the development of early warning capabilities.
Read the full article at: INTELLItrace
The paper discusses the social and economic aspects of an individual rogue-farmer, and explores his involvement in the illegal halal (‘smokies’) trade over a fifteen-year period. The smokies were produced in illegal slaughter premises usually from stolen sheep, which are killed without stunning. It illustrates an example of criminal-entrepreneurship, which although productive and profitable for the criminal entrepreneurs exploiting food supply chains, is nevertheless unproductive and potentially destructive to society. The paper will be useful to food enforcers in that it furthers our understanding of criminal entrepreneurial practice and morality in the food industry.
Read the full paper at: Illegal smokies production
A food industry intelligence network (FIIN) has been set up to combat the threat of fraud in the supply chain, and is inviting food and drink manufacturers to join its membership base. The Network's remit covers the supply chain integrity and authenticity. FIIN 's Board is co-chaired by Paul Willgoss of M&S, and Helen Sissons of Greencore. Twenty one major food companies have already signed up to the Network. Reports will be prepared by Campden BRI, and Queen's University, Belfast. The Network is already generating an insight into the supply chain authenticity with the help of the intelligence provided by it members, and is looking to expanding the Network to deliver even stronger intelligence providing supply chain integrity on a global level.
Read the full article at: Food Industry Intelligence Network
This article gives a summary of the recent major food frauds occurring in the US market in cheese, honey, seafood, olive oil and spices.
Read the article at: Food fraud in the US market
The vast majority of wasabi consumed in America is simply a mix of horseradish, hot mustard, and green dye, according to a new video from the American Chemical Society.
In fact, about 99% of all wasabi sold in the US is fake, The Washington Post reports.
Even in Japan where most wasabi is grown, you won't have much better luck. Experts estimate that about 95% of wasabi sold in the country is an imitation.
True wasabi is difficult to grow and extraordinarily expensive, costing $160 a kilogram at wholesale prices.
In 2017 MoniQA Association (Monitoring and Quality Assurance in the total food supply chain) www.moniqa.org will highlight emerging issues related to 1) food authenticity and food fraud prevention and 2) food allergens and effective food allergen management. Starting with various task force meetings (25 January 2017) and an international symposium on Food Fraud Prevention and Effective Food Allergen Management 26 + 27 January 2017 http://bari2017.moniqa.org/ the MoniQA Global Food Safety Network again will strengthen its involvement in collaborative research projects, providing validated reference materials (especially for food allergen analysis), developing harmonized protocols, offering validated information and online tools and databases, as well as providing training and continuous professional development. The top 5 priorities for 2017 will include food authenticity, food allergens, antimicrobial resistance, processing and chemical contaminants (including mycotoxins), and microbiological contaminants.
The National Food Crime Unit has 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.
More details at: Food Crime Confidential
The ability to anticipate and mitigate emerging risks has always been of extreme interest to all stakeholders in the food supply chain. This paper in New Food (Magazine), Volume 19, Issue 5, 2016 discusses the tools developed by Fera to identify these risks before they become incidents.
Read the paper at: Food Incidents Identification
Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 on official controls of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules, is under review. Political agreement on a recent draft of 26 September 2016 has been reached, and it should be voted upon by the end of the year and adopted in early 2017. The amended scope of the Regulation and official controls now includes the possible violation of the rules perpetrated through fraudulent or deceptive practices i.e. food fraud. The risk of this occurring should be taken into account by competent authorities when organising and prioritising their national official controls, as well as controls on imported foods. Fraudulent or deceptive practices committed with respect to the marketing standards referred to in Articles 73 to 91 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 are included as well.
Read the full article at: Fraud Amendment on Food and Feed Controls
At a Inner London Court hearing on 26 October, 3 men have been charged with fraud offences of conspiring to sell horsemeat as beef between January and October 2012. Two of the men have pleaded guilty, and will be sentenced after the hearing. The third pleaded not guilty, and will face trial.
Read more about case at:
http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Regulation/Two-plead-guilty-to-conspiracy-in-horsemeat-fraud-scandal?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=28-Oct-2016&c=5Od9IP%2BSSg1236v1AjSvfmIdMHbfHptl&p2=
Authenticate is a cloud based technology platform, developed by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) and the Seasoning and Spices Association (SSA) in liaison with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS), which provides companies with a tool to help combat food fraud in herbs and spices.
Basic Membership to the Authenticate system is free.
This paper gives a review of the current and potential applications of ambient ionisation mass spectrometry in determining the authenticity of food. Ambient mass spectrometry (based on electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry) has developed rapidly in the past 18 years and covers thirty different techniques. The review reports the authentication of many foods including olive oil, dairy products, coffee, meat and fish, but quantification using ambient mass spectrometry is still an issue and requires further work.
Read the full article at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165993616301017
The New York Times and Bafblog list some interesting food frauds and dangerous adulteration investigated by police and Interpol around the world.
Read the articles at: http://barfblog.com/2016/05/food-fraud-police-and-interpol-crackdown-on-toxic-food/
and: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/world/what-in-the-world/interpol-toxic-food.html?_r=1
