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10249876885?profile=RESIZE_710xCALL FOR PARTICIPATION in the Food Fraud Prevention THINK TANK's latest “Food Fraud 20 Questions” survey on Food Document Fraud – Concerns and Countermeasures.

This is an update of their 2016 survey on the topic and is a 5-10 minute online, confidential, anonymous survey. Please participate or forward it to others as you see fit.

Your involvement will contribute to research and reports that help you reduce your “fraud opportunity.”

SURVEY LINK: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FoodDocument

The food industry accepts a wide range of documents to confirm the identity and source of products bought and sold. The research project based on this survey begins with an analysis of:

  • The documents used in food product transactions
  • The documents that are known or suspected to be fraudulent
  • Best practices or countermeasures

This “Food Fraud 20 Questions” survey will provide more insight into this emerging and timely subject. Once the project is completed, the free Food Fraud Insight Report (link below) will be updated.

Additional Resources:

For further information visit the Food Fraud Prevention THINK TANK website.

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9326056301?profile=RESIZE_710xThe International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) (https://www.foodprotection.org/) is one of the three largest food-related professional associations, with more than 4,500 individual food safety professionals focusing on “advancing food safety worldwide.” IAFP started in 1911 as the International Association of Dairy and Milk Inspectors. Their focus expanded to food sanitarians and the current, broader food protection focus. For those of you not familiar with the food industry, “The term public health sanitarian shall mean a person who applies the principles of the natural and social sciences for the detection, evaluation, control and management of those factors in the environment which influence the public’s health.” (reference)

IAFP also is the publisher of several scholarly journals, including the Journal of Food Protection and Food Protection Trends. “The Journal of Food Protection is the leading publication in the field of food microbiology and remains the premier journal dedicated to food safety.”

The IAFP Food Fraud Professional Development Group has published an “interest survey” to be completed by IAFP and PDG members, plus the public at large. We are reviewing our direction for 2021 and beyond. This survey is your opportunity to be heard and to help lead the direction of food fraud prevention.

The survey takes only a few minutes to complete. 

Link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FfPdg2021JulyIntroduction

QR code to the survey:

QR code for survey
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The modern food industry is fast moving with complex supply chains that utilises a wide variety of analytical tools to support food integrity and authenticity. Devices that allow diagnostic tests to be performed at or near the point of need, often termed Point-of-contact (POC), represent a growing area within the food sector with the potential to provide real-time monitoring of input materials and the production process. POC devices can range from handheld spectroscopic devices such as Raman and FT-IR instruments to desktop portable systems such as compact mass spectrometry and NMR systems.

A questionnaire looking at POC testing in the food sector has been devised by LGC as part of a Defra funded project (FA0178: Point of Contact Testing) tasked with investigating the application of POC technology to food authenticity testing. The questionnaire is targeted at individuals involved in the food and associated diagnostics sectors, including primary production, supply and manufacturing.

The project team would greatly appreciate your participation in this questionnaire, which will directly help inform the direction of the project and contribute to guidance within the sector.

POC Questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/J8L8N3X

We thank you in advance for your assistance and kindly request that the survey is completed by Friday 31st July 2020.

Kind regards

Food Authenticity Network Executive Management Team

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As food is now sourced globally, it is important that the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has a good understanding of the global drivers of food fraud (root causes of why food fraud incidents occur) that impact the UK and which of the available tools can help it best protect the UK food supply from these influences.

 A Defra funded project is in progress to address these needs. A literature review and expert workshop, held in January 2020, identified food fraud drivers and food fraud mitigation tools.

The aim of this survey is to get your views on the outputs of the literature review and expert workshop so that the most commonly used tools can be selected for evaluation in phase 2 of the Defra project.

The survey will take 10 minutes or less to complete:

Complete Survey

We thank you in advance for your assistance and kindly request that the survey is completed by Friday 19 June 2020.

The Food Authenticity Network Team

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A national survey of CBD products by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has found that the majority of products analysed were in breach of various articles of food law and some posed potential safety risks for consumers.

The survey reveals that 37% of the products tested had a THC* content that could result in safety limits set by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) being significantly exceeded and the implicated batches of these products are currently being recalled. In addition, it was found that the analytically determined CBD content in over 40% of samples varied significantly (>50%) from the declared CBD content.

The implications of these results for consumers range from consumers being grossly misled to being put at risk by the ingestion of relatively high levels of THC. The majority of the 38 products tested from the Irish market were manufactured outside of the country.

The FSAI is working with the Environmental Health Service of the HSE and the relevant food businesses in relation to the matter.

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3708557211?profile=RESIZE_710xThe herbal products, sold worldwide as medicines or foods, are perceived as low risk because they are considered natural and thus safe. The quality of these products is ineffectively regulated and controlled. The growing evidence for their lack of authenticity is causing deep concern, but the scale of this phenomenon at the global, continental or national scale remains unknown.

Reserachers analysed data reporting the authenticity, as detected with DNA-based methods, of 5,957 commercial herbal products sold in 37 countries, distributed in all six inhabited continents. The global survey shows that a substantial proportion (27%) of the herbal products commercialized in the global marketplace is adulterated when their content was tested against their labeled, claimed ingredient species. The adulterated herbal products are distributed across all continents and regions. The proportion of adulterated products varies significantly among continents, being highest in Australia (79%), South America (67%), lower in Europe (47%), North America (33%), Africa (27%) and the lowest in Asia (23%).

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