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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 February 2025 report can be found here.

As with all incident collation reports, interpretation must be drawn with care.  The 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
• 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 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 had a big impact on the data captured by all commercial incident databases.

In FAN’s graphical analysis of the Agri-Food Fraud Suspicions, shown here, 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), excluded unauthorised health claims on supplements, and we have excluded residues and contaminants above legal limits.  Our analysis is subjective but intended to give a high-level overview.

We have grouped the remaining cases into crude categories.  It can be seen that the majority are either unregistered trade (e.g. illegal import, or unlicenced premises), falsified certification or traceability records, or substandard meat quality/content in processed foods (what used to be termed “QUID”).  It can be useful to compare a series of consecutive months to see if there is any evidence for materialisation of frauds flagged as risks by supply-and-demand pressures (e.g. the recent increase in cocoa prices).  So far, we only have two months of analysis but we will continue to publish these trends over the year..

The final report has been published from the German “DIGICHECK” project, which aims to strengthen and verify Organic traceability by utilising Internet-of-Things sensors and digital traceability systems.

The project aimed to achieve

1. The digital collection of real-time land, yield and certification data (from certifiers) and product transaction data (from companies of trading, processing, etc.) as well as the linking of this data as information for authorised users;
2. the calculation of mass balances along product chains calculated from land, income and transactions;
3. the use and linking of geographical information systems (GIS) and data collected by sensors to the certification data in order to provide control bodies with additional tools for their control activities, including independently of an on-the-spot visit;
4. the optimisation of control activities and quality assurance measures along the cereal product chain through the exchange of information between the operators involved;
5. clarifying which instruments and measures are permitted under the EU Organic Regulation and the German Organic Farming Act and could be implemented as required;
6. the evaluation of which tools can be usefully used by control authorities and which information should be made available in the event of fraud or monitoring;
7. the evaluation of the extent to which data can be evaluated for statistical purposes.

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 January 2025 report has been published here.

As with all incident collation reports, interpretation must be drawn with care.  The 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.

In FAN’s graphical analysis, shown here, 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), excluded unauthorised health claims on supplements, and we have excluded residues and contaminants above legal limits.

We have grouped the remaining cases into crude categories.  It can be seen that the majority are either unregistered trade (e.g. illegal import, or unlicenced premises) or substandard meat quality/content in processed foods (what used to be termed “QUID”).  Olive oil is the most adulterated specific product, including both substitution with other vegetable oils or mislabelling of Lampeter oil as EVOO.  Document forgery is a current watch-out in the UK, and the EU cases include a forged Health Certificate.

The results of the EC 2021-2022 honey sampling and analysis co-ordinated action, following the  From the Hives report, were concerning.  This 2023 report concluded that all 10 of the sampled honeys imported from the UK were “suspicious”. 

This finding prompted further investigation by the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Defra have now published an independent expert review into the analytical methods used in the survey.  There is a lot of technical content in the review.  It re-emphasises that no single honey authenticity test is likely to be definitive, and that a weight of evidence approach should be used with some tests being weighted higher than others.  When the total weight of evidence is not strong then phrasing such as “warrants further investigation” would be a fairer conclusion than “suspicious”.

One specific learning from the review is that laboratories must take care with the selection of authenticity markers, depending on the analytical question being asked.  The example given is oligosaccharides.  Some of these markers are known to vary between honey that has had moisture mechanically removed compared to honey that has not.  Moisture removal may be a production necessity (in humid climates where honey will not evaporate naturally) or a commercial choice to speed the harvest cycle (as is commonly used in China).  Moisture-removed honey is common within UK blends of Chinese origin honeys  but is not permitted in some EU countries.  Thus a test based on oligosaccharide markers could differentiate UK honey from EU for reasons that are already understood.  It might not provide any new insight, for example, on sugar or syrup adulteration.

Photo by Art Rachen on Unsplash

A recent report (open access) by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) concluded that it is beneficial to financially reward whistleblowers, and recommends a UK consultation to bring in the necessary legislation.  The conclusions were strongly supported by Nick Ephgrave, Director of the Serious Fraud Office, at the report’s launch event on 10 December.

Many jurisdictions already have such schemes.  For example, in the US, the Department of Justice is running a 3 year pilot to reward whistleblowers with a percentage of forfeited proceeds.  The scheme is targeted at, but not exclusive to, frauds involving bribery and currency offences.  It  is only triggered if the whistleblower’s information leads to a forfeiture above $1 million USD. 

The legal and corporate cultural landscape is very different in the UK compared to the US, and the RUSI report makes the point that any national whistleblower reward scheme needs to be tailored rather than a “cut-and-paste” from another jurisdiction.  Rewards are just one facet of a successful whistleblower scheme and the report makes many more detailed recommendations.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission have published a report that includes an overview of food fraud information sharing networks and incident data held around the world.  (including both the Food Industry Intelligence Network, Fiin, and the 2022 Defra report FA0175 into food fraud drivers and mitigation tools).

The report recommends the funding of a new predictive analytics model to try and prioritise future fraud risks based on historic patterns of reported incidents.  This would be predicated on improved data sharing between different countries and between industry and governments.  The report recommends a public-private partnership model to develop the concept.

The European Commission published today the results of the first coordinated control plan on the authenticity of herbs and spices launched by the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety.

It has been carried out by 21 EU Member States, Switzerland and Norway, with the technical support of the Joint Research Centre, which performed nearly 10,000 analyses. The plan is the largest investigation so far into the authenticity of culinary herbs and spices in terms of participating countries and samples analysed (1885).

The main conclusions were as follows: 

• The overall rate of suspicious samples was 17% (323 of a total of 1885 analysed samples), which is less than what was previously reported in the scientific literature or by national food control institutions.
• The oregano supply chain was most vulnerable as 48% of samples were suspicious of being adulterated, in most cases with olive leaves.
• The percentage of samples which were suspicious of adulteration were 17% for pepper, 14% for cumin, 11% for curcuma, and 11% for saffron.
• The lowest suspicion rate (6%) was found for paprika/chilli.
• The majority of suspicious samples contained non-declared plant material; in 2% of the analysed spice samples non-authorised dyes were detected. One sample contained a high level of lead chromate.
• In two cumin, 45 oregano, and four pepper samples copper compounds above the relevant maximum residue limit set by Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 were found.
• No specific trend regarding the rate of potential fraudulent manipulations along the supply chain (countries of origin/importers/wholesalers/processors/packagers) could be observed. However, for certain stages (domestic production, local markets, border control, and internet) the number of samples tested was too low to enable statistically meaningful comparisons.

Read full report.

The Government Chemist 2021 Conference “Safe food for tomorrow’s world” took place online on 23 and 24 June. The conference included talks from 20 national and international speakers on topics from regulatory perspective, how food science can impact health outcomes and novel solutions for food authenticity and sustainability. The talks were well received by the 240+ participants who attended the conference for at least one talk.

This event had originally been planned for June 2020, then postponed to June 2021 and finally delivered as an online event. The transition to the online platform did present technical challenges and limited the interaction between participants. However, it also presented an opportunity to engage a greater number of stakeholders at UK and international level.

Participants

A significant proportion of participants (approx 50%) represented UK government departments and local authorities from all the nations.

There were also participants from trade associations, industry, consultants, consumer advocacy groups, press and independent attendants.

The vast majority of attendants joined from the UK. However, people joined from Turkey, Slovakia, Latvia, Uruguay and Hong Kong.

Feedback

In feedback received from a selection of participants approximately 42.5% of respondents felt it was better than expected, 9% said it was much better than expected and 48.5% said that the conference met their expectations.

Presentations from the conference are available.

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has published its February 2021 Food Fraud Monthly Summary reporting food fraud incidents and investigations from around the world. 

Thanks again to our Member Bruno Séchet for creating this  infographic and allowing us to share it with the rest of the Network

Read the February 2021 Summary here

The 2019 Organic Market Report reveals that the UK organic market continues to grow. The market is now in to its 8th year of steady, loyal growth, growing +5.3% in 2018 and on target to reach £2.5bn by 2020.

The 2019 Organic Market Report is the most comprehensive report covering the organic market in the UK today. It is an essential read and reference document for anyone researching or working within the industry, selling organic products or assisting businesses in selling organic in the UK.

The report takes a detailed look at the sales trends across all channels and the major reasons for this growth – it includes updates on the performance of organic in supermarkets, independent retailers, the food service sector and a spotlight on home delivery.

It shares the output from recent consumer research that considers the organic customer, how they shop and what influences their decision making, as well as some interesting take-outs around hot topics like packaging and wider environmental issues that continue to influence shopper choices.

The report also covers farming and the opportunities for export and growth internationally. It takes a look at the year ahead and some of the key challenges and opportunities facing the organic industry.

The report is free for Soil Association Certification licensees (you just need your licence number) and costs £100 +VAT to purchase for non-licensees.

Download the 2019 Organic Market Report

The UK National Measurement System’s (NMS) Annual highlights report has been published. The report provides a snapshot of the achievements and the impact of the NMS, and demonstrates how measurement plays a vital role in all aspects of our lives.

Every time you get a Certificate of Analysis for an authenticity test of one of your products or, more generally, use your GPS, put petrol in your car, receive a medical diagnosis etc. you are putting your trust in measurements that are underpinned by a system that ensures they are both reliable and internationally recognised. 

The Government invests approximately £65m every year in our measurement infrastructure, and it provides important support for evidence-based policy and regulation.

• The report shows that the NMS is collaborative, with 445 active academic partnerships delivering key priorities across all sectors, of advanced manufacturing, energy and environment, life sciences and digital.

• Measurement enables trade, and the NMS provides vital support to industry. In 2016/17 the NMS offered 437 different measurement services to over 731 different customers across the UK.

• The reach of the NMS is nationwide, and has a significant pool of knowledge that is shared through products, services, reference materials, event best practice guides and online resources.

• The NMS is providing important skills capabilities for now and in the future, by running a broad range of specialist training programmes and offering a trailblazer apprenticeship standard for metrology technicians.  In 2016/17, 1,189 people have been trained across 57 training courses

• Important work has started in identifying the most pressing industry challenges in the quality, reliability and integrity of data.

UK NMS Annual highlights report.