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Spink’s Food (Fraud) for Thought

Posted by John Points on February 19, 2024 at 8:48am

Part II - Food Fraud Prevention and Types of Fraud

Welcome! In support of the Food Authenticity Network, this blog series reviews key topics related to food fraud prevention. Watch here for updates that explore the definitions of food fraud terms and concepts.

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This blog post builds on our previous review of the definition and scope of food fraud.

Food fraud was first clearly defined in 1820 by Frederick Accum in ‘A Treatise on Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poisons.’ Over the next two hundred years, the subject continued to be reviewed as a  food science or food safety problem, as by Wiley and other pillars of scholarship. Along the way, ‘someone else’ was relied upon to actually prevent the problem. The ‘someone else’ was never assigned.

Interdisciplinary areas of study converged over time, to enable the shift to focus on prevention. In the 1970s, criminology theory expanded from focusing on the criminal and punishment to prevention. In the 1980s, quality management became a separate area of business theory with a shift to understanding and reducing the root causes of problems. In the 2000s, risk management became more formalized, such as in ISO 31000 Risk Management, which focused on likelihood and consequence as well as risk and vulnerability. In the 2010s, Enterprise Risk Management expanded the resource allocation decision-making to evaluate not only how to mitigate but also to prevent problems. 

This holistic view of vulnerability applied criminology concepts to all criminal acts and all possible targets. For food products, that led to the need to define the ‘types of food fraud’ and the ‘types of products.’ If we are going to prevent food fraud, we need to consider all types of actions and products. This led to the holistic and all-encompassing definitions:

Type of Food Fraud & Definition (From various sources including GFSI and SSAFE):

  • Adulterant-Substances (Adulterant/ Adulteration):
    • Dilution: The process of mixing a liquid ingredient with a high value with a liquid of a lower value.
    • Substitution: The process of replacing an ingredient or part of the product of high value with another ingredient or part of the product of lower value.
    • Concealment: The process of hiding the low quality of a food ingredient or product.
    • Unapproved enhancements: The process of adding unknown and undeclared materials to food products in order to enhance their quality attributes.
  • Mislabeling or Misbranding: The process of placing false claims on packaging for economic gain.
  • Grey market production/ diversion:
    • Gray Market: A market employing irregular but not illegal methods.
    • Theft: Something stolen and then covertly re-entered into commerce.
    • Diversion/ Parallel Trade: The act or an instance of shifting a product from one intended market to another, which is unauthorized but either legal or illegal.
  • Counterfeiting (IPR): The process of copying the brand name, packaging concept, recipe, processing method, etc., of food products for economic gain.

The types of food fraud are intentionally broad – holistic and all-encompassing - to frustrate the criminal against action of any kind.

Watch out for the next blog in March, which will review fraud susceptibility of different types of products (e.g., raw materials or ingredients to finished goods in the marketplace).

If you have any questions on this blog, we’d love to hear from you in the comments box below.

References:

 

 

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