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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 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.

On February 12th, a virtual gathering of experts, researchers, and policymakers took place at the Analysis 4 Authenticity Online Food Authenticity Conference, hosted by the Food Authenticity Network.

Among the key speakers was Professor Saskia van Ruth, coordinator of EFF-CoP, who took the stage and introduced the project, a collaborative initiative designed to strengthen cooperation in the fight against fraudulent food practices. She emphasized how EFF-CoP is working to bridge the gaps - bringing experts together and reinforcing food integrity across global supply chains.

Updates will also be added to the FAN EFF-CoP page.

In the heart of Amsterdam, on January 15-16 2025, a group of passionate partners[1] came together to officially embark on an important journey - the fight against food fraud. This moment marked the beginning of EFF-CoP, a collective effort dedicated to making food systems more transparent, authentic, and resilient. With a shared vision, the partners made a powerful commitment to:

🌍 Enhance collaboration and knowledge sharing
📖 Develop and disseminate best practices
🚀 Promote innovative learning and capacity building
🔍 Strengthen food authenticity, traceability, and transparency
🤝 Expand and sustain a vibrant community through EFF-HUB
🌱 Ensure long-term viability and impact

Over the course of two inspiring days, Work Package Leaders and partners, took the stage, presenting their ideas, brainstorming strategies, and setting ambitious goals - not just for the project’s success, but for its lasting legacy beyond its official duration. But it wasn’t all work; they also cooked together, danced together, and built the kind of trust and camaraderie that turns a group of professionals into a true team.

In the coming months, EFF-CoP will launch its official website and EFF-HUB, a dynamic digital platform designed to connect minds, foster innovation, and provide invaluable resources. Members will have access to Good Practice Recommendations, factsheets, case studies, educational content and a forum - all aimed at strengthening the global fight against food fraud.

But learning won’t be confined to static resources. EFF-CoP is set to revolutionize engagement with interactive activities like food fraud festivals, gamified training sessions, living labs, webinars, podcasts, and hands-on workshops.

Whether you’re an expert, a researcher, a policymaker, or simply someone who cares about the integrity of the food on your plate - you are welcome to join. The fight against food fraud needs a community, and that community starts here.

[1] UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, AGROKNOW IKE, SMART AGRO HUB, NOFIMA AS, WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY, REZOS BRANDS, LGC LIMITED, 8D GAMES BV, DELOITTE LIMITED, RETE INTERNAZIONALE PER LE PICCOLEE MEDIE IMPRESE, EUROFINS ANALYTICS FRANCE SAS, WENGER-TRAYNER UNIPESSOAL LDA, AUTORIDADE SEGURANCA ALIMENTAR E ECONOMICA, SSAFE, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements - EU Group, FIIN LTD, UDRUGA DIH AGRIHRANA HRVATSKA, Food Fraud Prevention Think Tank LLC, Stichting Fraude Film Festival, Stichting FSSC.

Updates will also be added to the FAN EFF-CoP page.

This study (open access) advances the field of “natural” vanilla flavour authentication, and of geographic origin of vanilla pods, by investigating minor volatile organic compounds and their isotopic ratios. Vanilla pods from the two main vanilla species, V. planifolia and V. tahitensis, were investigated using GC-MS/MS to analyze their aromatic profile and GC-C/Py-IRMS to determine compound-specific isotope ratios, providing, for the first time, detailed and authentic isotopic and aromatic profiles.

The researchers quantified more than 50 volatile compounds in different vanilla pods.

A key finding was the confirmation—through UHPLC-HRMS analysis—that ethyl vanillin and its glucoside precursors were absent in genuine vanilla extracts, reinforcing that the detection of ethyl vanillin remains a reliable marker of fraud.

The authors conclude that their study provides new insights into the natural pathways of biosynthesis in vanilla. For the first time, compound-specific isotope analysis has been applied to minor aromatic compounds in vanilla pods, opening new avenues for their use in authentication and botanical and geographical traceability of vanilla flavours. The study pioneers the application of isotope analysis to authentic vanilla extracts spiked with synthetic ethyl vanillin, enabling a more precise assessment of the impact on the isotopic composition of foods flavoured with natural vanillin following fraudulent augmentation with small amounts of ethyl vanillin.

Photo by Jocelyn Morales on Unsplash

In this episode from legal firm Brodies LLP the panellists discuss the growing popularity of buying and selling Scotch whisky casks, risks of fraud and some cautionary advice for buyers.

Grant Strachan is a partner at Brodies LLP, with a specialist focus on the food and drink sector, and Vikki Bruce is the founding director of CaskNet, a tech start-up that is building a register for Scotch whisky casks. It is hosted by David Lee, an experienced journalist, writer and broadcaster based in Scotland.

Together, they cover a range of issues, including the reasons for consumer interest in Scotch whisky, the process involved when buying a Scotch whisky cask and the legal/regulatory factors to consider, the challenges with unscrupulous brokers, the approach by regulatory bodies, and what buyers can do to minimise the risk of fraud. 

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Further to the review of methods used in the EU co-ordinated survey of honey collected 2021-22 (“From the Hives” survey) – see previous blog here:

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission have now published (open access) more details of some of the test methods used and results interpretation.  This publication relates particularly to the two qualitative Liquid Chromatography–High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (LC-HRMS) methods that were developed to detect mannose (Man), difructose anhydride III (DFA III), 2-acetylfuran-3-glucopyranoside (AFGP), and oligo-/polysaccharides with degrees of polymerization (DPs) of 6 to 11.

The presence of mannose and unusual oligo-/polysaccharides was the main reason that many of the samples were flagged as “suspicious” in the previously published report.

Forbes has reported a 27% increase in US cargo thefts—over 3,600 in 2024—with foods like nuts, avocados, and eggs among the top targets.  A recent example was the theft of over 100,000 organic eggs in Pennsylvania. 

This trend chimes with reported incidents worldwide, such as the deceptive theft of 22 tonnes of cheese from Neal’s Yard in the UK last year.  As food prices increase, theft and grey-market diversion on an industrial scale becomes and increasingly attractive criminal target.

Photo by Oscar Nilsson on Unsplash

Applications are invited for a temporary post of a Food Fraud Network Researcher within UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science.

In regions where clarified dairy fat (ghee) is a staple food, the potential for adulteration with palm oil (solid vegetable fat) is a continual concern.  Analytical differentiation can be difficult.

In this study (open access) the authors experimentally compared and contrasted a range of analytical techniques that have been proposed for identifying palm oil mixed into ghee at levels down to 5 – 10% (generally considered the lower limit for economically motivated adulteration). 

They concluded that  both Butyro refractometer readings and iodine value analysis were not as efficient in detecting adulteration at lower level. Reichert-Meissl value analysis alone was not able to draw a conclusion regarding the purity of ghee. However, the Kirshner value analysis could be an effective parameter to detect adulteration of palm oil in ghee down to 5%. 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazy and ferric chloride-based chromogenic tests were very effective to detect the presence of palm oil in milk fat or ghee rapidly; thus, these tests could be used in field conditions. The use of triglyceride analysis (S-value) and plant sterol detection offered a comprehensive laboratory-based confirmation to detect palm oil adulteration in ghee at 5% levels.

This review (open access, pre-publication) collates published surveys of seafood mislabelling in Asia (the time period reviewed is not stated).  The authors list results along with the testing methodologies used, listing separate results for China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan.  Some surveys, particularly of specialist fish powders or premium smoked fish products, reported mislabelling rates of 70 or 80%.  More typical mislabelling rates for fillets sold as a single species were around 7 or 8%.

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission have published their monthly collation of food fraud reports for January 2025 here, following on quickly from the final 2024 collations which were highlighted in our blog on 5^th February..  Thanks again to FAN member Bruno Sechet who has turned these into an infographic.  The original infographic, along with his commentary, is on Bruno's LinkedIn feed.

The source for the JRC collation are global media reports, and these always gives a slightly different picture than collating official reports.  Best practice in horizonscanning is to look at multiple collations of fraud incidents/suspicions along with their commentaries, both official and media, and make an intelligent assessment of their complementary scopes and limitations when drawing insight.  FAN's annual aggregated report gives a high-level annual overview for 2024 from official reports.

In this paper (open access) the authors trained a Machine Learning model to differentiate between Top, Bottom and Spontaneous fermented bottled beers.  Data were collected using a non-invasive hand held NIR scanner pointed directly through the unopened bottle using a customised foam attachment.  The model was trained on 25 samples of major brands purchased online, rather than reference samples of verified traceability, but the training samples covered a wide range of beer types from stouts to light ales, and a wide range of bottle types and colours.

The authors report good classification based on fermentation method.  They consider that evidence of a wrong fermentation method could be one quick and easy check that could flag counterfeits.  They also correlated the NIR data with sensory panel assessments and SPME-GC-MS data and concluded that non-invasive NIR has the potential to classify beers based on their aroma profiles.

Image from the paper

There has been a lot posted recently about honey authenticity and test methods.  This blog from the FSA pulls it all together in one concise and systematic page.  It includes

• Honey sampling guidelines
• The weight of evidence approach to interpreting test results
• The UK AMWG review of the EU “From the Hives” report
• New testing methods developed under FSA-funded research

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

This report provides a summary of global food fraud reports in 2024 from three of the world’s leading commercial food fraud incident collation tools: FoodChain ID Food Fraud Database, HorizonScan and Safety HUD.

Food fraud reports published by global regulatory agencies during 2024 do not provide evidence of a consistent, significant trend during 2024, and in fact, are like those seen in 2023. The activity associated with official food fraud and food safety reports remained fairly consistent across the four quarters of 2024.

The top three commodities with the most food fraud reports varies depending on the source of reports and the tool used:

• Using official reports only, Beverages’, ‘Processed foods’ and ‘Milk & diary products’.
• Using official, media & peer reviewed publication reports, ‘Seafood’, ‘Honey’ and ‘Dairy’.

Although ‘milk & dairy products’ is the only common commodity in the top three foods with the greatest number of reports above, seven commodities are common in the top ten foods from both the average of official reports only and data from Food Chain ID. In fact, many of these commodities are also common in Food Chain ID’s data over a ten-year period, demonstrating that these foods are most reported as being fraudulent, year on year.

It should be noted that the featuring of commodities in this report does not necessarily mean that these are the world’s most fraudulent foods, as many of these commodities are often the subject of targeted sampling and analysis by regulators and inter-agency operations conducted by Europol, Interpol etc… Other factors can also have an influence, for example, the number of peer reviewed publications on commodity-specific authenticity issues.

 The number of official food fraud reports published in 2024, by an average of forty-seven sources, is very low at only ~8% of food safety reports. There were no new sources of food fraud data reported by regulatory agencies in 2024. If analysis of official food fraud reports is to be meaningful, more regulatory agencies should publish their data in an open access format.

Botanical and animal origin fraud were the most reported type of food fraud in 2024, followed by use of non-food substance and dilution. Of these frauds, using non-food substances in food has the potential to do the most harm as seen in the Sudan dyes in chilli powder and melamine in infant formula incidents.

This report is the second annual report to be produced for this Partner project.

Platinum and Gold FAN Partners receive quarterly dashboard reports at the end of each quarter. Please contact FAN, if you are interested in receiving these reports.

Commercial food fraud incident collation tools are not all the same; there are differences in purpose, how data are classified, collected and curated. Before choosing a tool, it is important to understand what it does so that the most appropriate tool for the intended purpose is selected.

This peer-reviewed pre-print (open access) reports a classification model for different Greek olive oil cultivars using combined data from two analytical techniques: volatile component analysis (6 marker compounds) by solid phase microextraction – gas chromatography (SPME-GC-MS) and spectral analysis by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR)

The model was built to differentiate Greek oils from 3 cultivars: Koroneiki, Megaritiki and Amfissis.  The reference database was constructed from samples collected over 3 harvest seasons.  The authors report that application of the supervised methods of linear and quadratic discriminant cross-validation analysis, based on volatile component data, provided a correct classification score of 97.4 and 100.0%, respectively. The corresponding statistical analyses were used in the mid-infrared spectra where the 96.1% of samples were discriminated correctly.

The authors conclude that ATR-FTIR and SPME-GC-MS, in conjunction with the appropriate feature selection algorithm and classification methods, are powerful tools for the authentication of Greek olive oil. They consider that the proposed methodology could be used in industrial settings for the determination of Greek olive oil botanical origin.

Members of the Global Alliance on Food Crime (GAFC) had a very busy week when they met up in Edinburgh during December last year (2024).

Representatives from the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), the Canadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA) and USA FDA made the long journey to Scotland to join up with UK representatives, Food Standards Scotland’s Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit and FSA’s National Food Crime Unit, to discuss all things food crime.

As a bonus, all those attending were able to take part in Opson/EMPACT event, which was also taking place in Edinburgh at the same time. Opson is an annual operation, led by Europol, which targets fake and unsafe food and beverages.  This event was attended by law enforcement and regulators from across Europe and was a fantastic opportunity for GAFC members to interact with their European counterparts and discuss common issues. There was also an opportunity to formally showcase GAFC work and future plans in the form of a presentation given by GAFC members Murray from DAFF and Jodi from the CFIA.

In terms of the GAFC meeting, a significant number of matters were discussed and an action plan, designed to deliver the GAFC strategic objectives and developing processes that will allow joint activity to be undertaken by member countries, was agreed.  These discussions were very positive and will see the GFAC’s work progress over the next 12 months. 

 In addition, The Food Authenticity Network’s (FAN) very own Executive Director, Selvarani Elahi, addressed the group on the work of FAN and gave an overview of the new the European Food Fraud Community of Practice (EFF-CoP) project that FAN is a partner of. This three-year Horizon Europe project aims to revolutionise the combat against food fraud and enhance transparency in food supply chains. Further information can be found on the FAN EFF-CoP page or its LinkedIn page.  All GFAC members agreed to consider partnering with FAN and see how they could assist FAN in extending its reach in each member country.

The group also took some time to meet with representatives from the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to find out more about the work they are doing globally and how the GAFC could assist some of this work from a food crime perspective moving forward. Further meetings will take place early in 2025 to map out exactly how the GAFC can support UNIDO’s work in this regard.

GAFC members will take the time to meet regularly during 2025, working collaboratively to deliver the GAFC action plan and consider options for additional joint activity on common issues. 

Regular updates will be provided over the coming months, however, further information on the work of the GAFC can be obtained by emailing the Chair of the GAFC, Ron McNaughton at ron.mcnaughton@fss.scot.

The December update has also been added to the 'Global Alliance on Food Crime' page on this website. Further information on the members of the GAFC will be added soon so watch that page...... 

Shrimp surimi-based products (SSPs) are composed of minced shrimp meat and are highly susceptible to fraudulent substitution by cheaper fish surimi.

This study (open access) employed a double-gene metabarcoding approach to authenticate SSPs sold in bulk (business-to-business) on Chinese e-commerce platforms. 16S rRNA and 12S rRNA genes were amplified and sequenced from 24 SSPs. Mislabeling was evaluated based on the correspondence between the ingredients (only those of animal origin) reported on the products’ labels and the molecular results.

The authors found that 21 of the 24 products were mislabeled. The replacement of Penaeus vannamei with other shrimp species was particularly noteworthy. In some samples the primary species detected in terms of sequence abundance were not shrimp but fish, pork, chicken, and cephalopods. The 12S rRNA sequencing results revealed that fish species like Gadus chalcogrammus, Evynnis tumifrons, and Priacanthus arenatus were added to some SSPs in significant proportions, with certain products relying on fish priced from “Low” to “High” levels to substitute higher-cost shrimp. Notably, many fish species in SSPs were highly vulnerable to fishing, raising sustainability concerns.

The authors conclude that the high mislabeling rate, as well as the detection of endangered fish species (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus), underscores significant quality control and supply chain integrity issues.

Photo by Fernando Andrade on Unsplash

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission have published their monthly collation of food fraud reports, combined for November and December 2024, here.  Thanks again to FAN member Bruno Sechet who has turned these into an infographic.  The original infographic (in much better resolution!), along with his commentary, is on Bruno's LinkedIn feed.

The source for the JRC collation are global media reports, and these always gives a slightly different picture than collating official reports.  Best practice in horizonscanning is to look at multiple collations of fraud incidents/suspicions along with their commentaries, both official and media, and make an intelligent assessment of their complementary scopes and limitations when drawing insight.  FAN's annual aggregated report gives a high-level overview of food fraud incidents in 2023 as recorded in official reports. The 2024 version is in preparation and will be published on our website soon.   

The  aim of this proof-of-principle study (open access) was to design a universal DNA microarray (“DNA Chip”) to distinguish all edible fish species by comparing hybridization signal patterns from samples with patterns obtained from reference specimens.

The researchers designed a universal set of 96 DNA probes that cover all fish species of food interest.  These were narrowed down by virtual modelling experiments from a long-list of 28,000 candidates which they had generated experimentally. They also included 4 control probes (sequences not present in edible fish).  All probes were based on sequences from either 16S ribosomal RNA or cytochrome b.

DNA was isolated with either a CTAB method or with commercial DNA extraction kits. The gene markers cytb (approx. 464 bp) and 16S rDNA (approx. 600 bp) and an additional pUC57 vector DNA region (542 bp) were amplified in triplex PCRs. The DNA probes were spotted contactless using piezoelectric dispensing technology as 19 × 19 arrays. For hybridization of the generated PCR amplicons on the prepared microarrays the INTER-ARRAY Hybridization Kit was used according to manufacturer's specifications. The arrays were measured directly after staining and then processed using the INTER-VISION GENOTYPING 1.2.0 software.

The authors tested 86 fish fillets sourced from verified suppliers and were able to correctly identify all species by hierarchical clustering analysis of the results.  The entire process takes a few hours.  They conclude that the method is ready for further validation and ruggedness testing. More replicates and species should be analyzed to confirm current results. Likewise, the robustness of the DNA array should be determined, e. g. by using different thermocycler or users and laboratories.

Graphical abstract from the paper