The EC Monthly Reports of Agri-Food Fraud Suspicions reports are a useful tool for estimating fraud incidents, signposted on FAN’s Reports page. The April and May 2025 reports have been added and can be found here.
FAN produces rolling 3-month graphical analysis. 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 subjective, intended only to give a high-level overview.
- Unlicenced trade in high-risk foods (which includes attempts at illegal import, along with production from unlicenced operator sites) continues to feature frequently
- Fraudulent or missing traceability paperwork (including Heath Certificates and analytical test certificates) continues to be prevalent
- The increase in suspected false DoP/PGI claims in May was largely attributed to fraudulent Proscecco
- Ingredient quantities and quality feature persistently, particularly meat and fish in manufactured food
- Of incidents of traditional "adulteration", edible oils (particularly olive oil) and honey feature regularly. Vanilla, coffee, spices, jams and spirits make more sporadic appearance.
As with all incident collation reports, interpretation must be drawn with care. This EC collation is drawn from the iRASSF system – these are not confirmed as fraud, and the root cause of each issue is usually not public. There are important differences in the data sources, and thus the interpretation that can be drawn, of these data compared to other incident collations. For example:
- JRC Monthly Food Fraud Summaries (which underpin the infographics produced monthly by FAN member Bruno Sechet) - these are unverified media reports, rather than official reports, but hugely valuable in giving an idea of which way the fraud winds are blowing
- Official reports (as collated from commercial databases such as Fera Horizonscan or Merieux Safety Hud, which underpin FAN's annual Most Adulterated Foods aggregation) - these are fewer in number and give a much more conservative estimate of fraud incidence, and may miss some aspects which have not been officially reported
- The Food Industry Intelligence Network (Fiin) free SME Hub. This excellent new resource collates anonymised UK industry test results for the benefit of Small and Medium Enterprises in the food sector (registration and approval required to obtain login).
- Verified reports (where the root cause has been scrutinised and interpreted by a human analyst, for example the FoodChainID commercial database) - these are also few in number, less suitable for drawing overall trends, but give specific insight and information.
If looking at trends over time, you must also be wary of step-changes due to the introduction of new data sources. For example, Turkey's public "name-and-shame" database of foods subject to local authority sanctions went online in January 2025 and has resulted in an apparant increase in incident reports from Turkey.
