News

We are pleased to launch a new webpage that provides navigation to some of the many tools and reports (both open-access and commercial software) that collate reported food fraud incidents and suspicions, draw trends, insights, and make future predictions.

Most of these tools were already signposted on FAN but we hope that the new hub explains some of the differences (all tools collect data in different ways, for different purposes, and give different insight) and makes it easier for you to navigate.  The hub also includes our own reports and summaries and those provided by our Partners for the benefit of FAN members; you must be logged on as a member to access this section.

You can access the new hub here.  We hope you find it useful.  Please let us kinow your feedback (you can e-mail, or leave a comment on this blog) and let us know any other tools you know of that should be included.

This monthly highlights report has been produced for FAN members by one of our Partner organisations, iComplai.

The report is an AI-generated prioritised digest.  It is blended from online regulatory and media reports of food fraud incidents and suspicions, giving a summary of each selected issue and suggested mitigation steps.

iComplai are one of a number of commercial providers of digital horizon scanning tools, many of whom are signposted on FAN on our new Incident Trends hub.  We do not endorse any specific company.  We are grateful to iComplai for providing this free digest which we hope you find useful.

If you know of a tool which would be beneficial to signpost to our membership, or if you are interested in becoming a FAN Partner, then please get in touch.

The UK government announced this week that they will be implementing national regulations to protect against deforestation.

The regulations will mirror the EUDR requirements in terms of the scope of foods and feed included and the requirement for companies to verify that their supply chains for these commodities do not contribute to deforestation.  There is no timescale announced yet for GB implementation; consultation will start shortly.  In the interim period Northern Ireland will implement the EUDR, under the Windsor Framework Agreement to maintain frictionless trade, phasing in from December 2026.

Anti-deforestation regulations will provide a significant new incentive for falsification of certification and traceability documentation, increasing the risk of origin fraud according to most risk-ranking models.

You can read the UK Government press release here.

Photo by Lingchor on Unsplash

Over the first 18 months of the EFF-CoP, partners have worked collaboratively to establish the foundations of a sustainable European Community of Practice dedicated to preventing and combating food fraud.

Through research, stakeholder engagement, innovation, education, foresight, and communication, the project has already delivered significant results while preparing the ground for the next phase of implementation:

WP1 - EFF-CoP’s inception and mobilisation

The European Food Fraud Community of Practice (EFF-CoP) continues to make excellent progress, successfully establishing the foundations needed to build a strong and lasting network dedicated to combating food fraud across Europe and beyond. Key milestones include the development of governance structures, the creation of a multi-stakeholder database, and the comprehensive mapping of food fraud networks, research initiatives, and policy activities. These achievements have brought together experts from industry, government, academia, and enforcement agencies, creating valuable opportunities for collaboration and knowledge exchange. The focus now is on strengthening and expanding the growing community, better understanding the connections within the network, identifying key influencers, and continuously improving information exchange among members.

Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

WP2 - Needs of EFF-CoP and future research agenda 

WP2 has made significant progress in developing a robust methodology for generating micro and macro-scenarios to support foresight exercises with relevant stakeholders and identify future food fraud challenges and opportunities. Stakeholder engagement included EFF-CoP focus group "World Café" sessions and a PESTLE workshop on geopolitical and climate change drivers during the 2025 International Food Fraud Conference in Berlin. By combining expert knowledge with artificial intelligence, the team developed a series of plausible future scenarios describing conditions that may shape the evolving food fraud landscape. The next phase will engage stakeholders in targeted foresight activities to apply these scenarios across supply chains, commodities, and food fraud typologies. The findings will support the identification of vulnerabilities, emerging risks, and future research priorities for food fraud prevention over the coming decade.

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

WP3 - Existing resources: Collection of and accessibility to current research, innovations, practices, and educational materials for preventing and detection food fraud

WP3 has equipped the EFF-CoP with a comprehensive suite of research and innovation resources for food fraud prevention and detection. The Food Fraud Research and Innovation Database was developed to bring together existing research, practices, and innovations, providing stakeholders with an accessible resource to compare approaches and support future living labs, co-creation activities, training, and knowledge exchange through the EFF-HUB. In parallel, the work package analysed the costs, benefits, and implementation barriers associated with food fraud innovations through literature reviews, surveys, and expert interviews, producing recommendations tailored to different stakeholder groups. Finally, the Food Fraud Educational Database was created to map existing educational materials and training resources, enabling community members to access and contribute learning materials that will continue to grow throughout the project.

Photo by detait on Unsplash

WP4 - New resources: Good Practice Recommendations, factsheets, and case study materials

Starting in July 2026, WP4 will focus on transforming the knowledge generated across the project into practical guidance for stakeholders. Through this WP we will develop Good Practice Recommendations, practical factsheets, and case study materials that demonstrate successful approaches to food fraud prevention and mitigation across agri-food supply chains. Through collaboration with EFF-CoP and project stakeholders, WP4 will identify, validate, and promote transferable good practices, supporting organisations of different sizes in strengthening their food fraud prevention strategies and improving resilience across the European food system.

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

WP5 - Interactive events: Training courses, living labs, and other events

WP5 has made significant progress in strengthening knowledge exchange and capacity building within the EFF-CoP. Innovative training materials are being developed, including a serious game designed around food fraud competencies identified through stakeholder needs assessments and validated by academic experts. A major milestone has been the launch of the EFF-CoP Academy, the project's collaborative online training and event platform integrated within the EFF-HUB, providing access to webinars, educational resources, networking opportunities, and community engagement activities. Preparations are also underway for the first co-innovation Living Lab in Greece, where industry, authorities, researchers, and SMEs will jointly develop practical solutions for food fraud prevention. In parallel, the project has successfully organised international webinars, podcasts, networking events, and roundtable discussions on topics such as food security, food fraud, cybersecurity, crisis management, and food waste, helping to strengthen stakeholder engagement across Europe.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com M on Unsplash

WP6 - Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication

Communication, dissemination, and stakeholder engagement have been at the heart of EFF-CoP since the project's launch. During the first 18 months, the project successfully established a strong digital presence through its website, social media channels, and the EFF-HUB, creating an active platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration. Major communication achievements include the launch of the 1^st Authentic Food Festival & Conference (AFFC), the publication of newsletters, magazine articles, podcasts, videos, webinars, and media collaborations, alongside continuous promotion of project results through international events and strategic partnerships. These activities have significantly increased the visibility of EFF-CoP, expanded its growing community of researchers, industry representatives, policymakers, and enforcement authorities, and strengthened collaboration with sister projects and international initiatives working towards safer and more authentic food systems.

Photo by Antenna on Unsplash

This update has also been added to the FAN EFF-CoP page: The European Food Fraud Community of Practice - FoodAuthenticity.

Find out more about EFF-CoP and its outputs here.

In this paper (open access) the authors propose a chemometric workflow for verifying rice varieties.

Authentic rice varieties were sourced from Ente Nazionale Risi, a public economic body supervised by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, These comprised 36 Italian plus varieties from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Australia, Brazil, India, and Louisiana.  They were characterised by their amylase (“high”, “low” and “waxy”) and by their grain morphology (“Round”, “Medium”, and 3 variations of “Long”).

The researchers built classification models based on both Near Infra-Red Hyperspectral Imaging (NIR-HSI) and on morphological classification.  They found that NIR-HSI alone gave relatively poor classification but they recommend it as a quick, cheap screening tool, with follow-up where required using a morphological classification model.  They propose a morphogram tool to visualise the results.  They report that this workflow gave good results, and recommend it as a routine approach that can be applied at any point where rice is traded..

Photo by Łukasz Rawa on Unsplash

In this study (purchase required, US$ 24.95) the authors applied Atmospheric Pressure Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry (AP-MALDI-MS) to assess the authenticity of ground black pepper samples using a non-targeted approach. MALDI is a mass spectrometry ionisation technique where the sample can be applied directly or with little preparation, and is often used for the analysis large molecules such as proteins and peptides.

A total of 58 samples, including authentic black pepper, adulterated pepper, and pure adulterants, were analyzed. Details of these training sets are not included in the open access abstract, nor the validation sets.  The authors report that the AP-MALDI source was coupled to a linear ion trap mass spectrometer, enabling tentative metabolite identification. Spectral fingerprints revealed diagnostic ions including piperine, dimeric alkaloids, plant-specific flavonoid glycosides, and triacylglycerols.

The analytical performance of the method was evaluated using multivariate statistics (principal component analysis, PCA, and partial least squared discriminant analysis, PLS-DA) and two machine learning models were built: Random Forest (RF) and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO).  They report that Random Forest achieved the highest performance with 91.8% area under the curve (AUC) in cross-validation, 81.71% on the withheld test set and 85.0% accuracy on the test set.

The authors conclude that these results support AP-MALDI-MS as a robust, high-throughput approach for ground black pepper authentication, and demonstrate its applicability for screening spice authenticity with minimal sample preparation.

Photo by Josh Massey on Unsplash

From 14 June 2026, the amendments introduced by Directive (EU) 2024/1438 are now applicable across the EU, bringing important changes to honey, fruit juices, jams and preserved milk products.

Key changes include:

🍯 Honey – Clearer origin labelling for blends, with countries listed in descending order by weight, plus stronger measures to support authenticity and traceability.

🧃 Fruit Juices – New provisions for reduced-sugar juices and clearer communication that fruit juices contain only naturally occurring sugars.

🍓 Jams & Marmalades – Increased minimum fruit content requirements and greater flexibility in the use of the terms "jam" and "marmalade" for certain citrus products.

🥛 Preserved Milk Products – Recognition of lactose-free preserved dehydrated milk products, expanding consumer choice.

🎯 The changes aim to improve transparency, support informed consumer choices and strengthen confidence in food authenticity.

PAS 96:2026 – Updated Guidance on Food Defence

PAS 96:2026 provides guidance for food businesses on assessing, managing and reducing the risk of deliberate threats that could compromise food safety, authenticity or supply continuity. Using a Threat Assessment Critical Control Point (TACCP) approach, it helps organisations identify vulnerabilities and implement proportionate controls to deter, detect and respond to malicious acts.

The 2026 edition is a full revision of PAS 96:2017 and reflects an evolving threat landscape. Key updates include:

• Greater recognition of cyber threats
• Lessons learned from Covid-19-related supply chain disruptions
• The potential impact of climate change on food systems, and
• Emerging risks associated with sustainability and food waste reduction initiatives.

The revised document also incorporates recent food defence case studies, updated cybercrime information, refinements to the TACCP process, and a restructured format with practical tools and checklists consolidated into Annex D.

We are delighted to see both the Food Authenticity Network (FAN) and, one of our Partner organisations, the Food Industry Intelligence Network (fIIn) referenced within PAS 96:2026, recognising the important role that collaboration, intelligence sharing and access to trusted resources play in strengthening food system resilience.

Access a free copy here.

The reference to PAS 96:2017 in the 'tools-guides-reports' section of FAN's Food Fraud Prevention pages has also been updated.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has published the results of targeted authenticity testing on frozen processed pork and beef products as part of its Annual Targeted Food Sampling Programme 2023–24.

A total of 160 frozen processed pork and beef products were analysed for the presence of undeclared meat species. All samples were found to be satisfactory, with no undeclared species detected.

The results provide reassurance that the products tested were accurately described and demonstrate the value of ongoing food authenticity surveillance. Regular monitoring helps verify compliance, maintain consumer confidence and provide evidence that supply-chain controls are working effectively.

Read full report here.

This eSeminar explores the science, regulation, and analysis of folic acid (vitamin B9) in bread and flour within the UK food sector.

It explains the essential role folate plays in human health and development, particularly in cell growth, DNA synthesis, and the prevention of neural tube defects during pregnancy. It also outlines current UK legislation governing the mandatory addition of folic acid to non-wholemeal wheat flour and public health objectives behind flour fortification.

A review of the analytical methods currently used to determine folate levels in bread and flour matrices is presented, which includes microbiological assays and chromatographic techniques such as HPLC and LC-MS/MS. The strengths, limitations, and practical considerations of each method are compared, alongside best-practice guidance for sampling, quality assurance, and data interpretation.

Finally, an explanation of how folate test results should be interpreted and reported, and highlights UK laboratories that offer folate testing services for the food industry and regulatory compliance purposes.

This eSeminar has been added to 'eSeminars' part of FAN's Training section.

The UK High Court has ruled that the Government did not fully assess the consequences of deregulating gene-edited organisms before introducing the Precision Breeding Regulations. The judgment focused on whether the impacts of removing requirements relating to transparency, traceability and labelling had been adequately considered during the policy-making process.

The case does not determine whether gene editing is safe or unsafe, nor does it prohibit the use of gene-editing technologies. Rather, it highlights the importance of ensuring that regulatory decisions fully consider their practical implications for supply chains, food businesses, consumers and assurance schemes.

For the food authenticity community, the ruling reinforces the ongoing significance of traceability, transparency and the ability to substantiate claims throughout the supply chain. As regulatory approaches to emerging technologies continue to evolve, robust systems for verification and information exchange remain essential to maintaining confidence in food products and supporting informed consumer choice.

Read the full judgement here.

Photo by Warren Umoh on Unsplash

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is the basis of an increasing number of onsite sensors for both food authenticity and food contaminant applications. However, its practical application to filament-type herbal materials such as saffron remains challenging, largely because their irregular surfaces hinder efficient sampling and lead to poor hotspot uniformity.

In this paper (purchase required, USD $36) the authors report a design modification that overcomes this hurdle.  They designed a template-assisted electrospun fiber membrane with well-ordered microcone arrays (EFM-OMA) as a flexible 3D SERS platform. They report that this architecture provides a highly repeatable nanoscale enhancement environment, enabling dense and uniform AgNPs-based hotspots across the entire substrate. This structure not only enhances electromagnetic coupling but also significantly improves molecular collection efficiency during swabbing of irregular solid samples.

They applied the sensor to adulterated saffron.  They report good sensitivity and signal reproducibility, meaning that the full-spectrum fingerprints obtained from the swab can be reliably analyzed using a Random Forest classifier, enabling accurate identification of dye-adulterated saffron. They report easy and pretreatment-free discrimination of pure vs dye-adulterated saffron.

Photo by Vera De on Unsplash

This paper (purchase required, US$ 38) reports the development of a point-of-use loop mediated isothermal (LAMP) assay to detect soybean adulteration in vegetable oils.

The LAMP primers of rtLAMP were designed based on the ITS2 sequence and further were used for validating the specificity and sensitivity.

The authors report that the LAMP primers of rtLAMP exhibited high specificity for amplifying soybean DNA extracted from oil samples, achieving authentication within 30 min at an isothermal temperature of 62 °C. The sensitivity of rtLAMP was 10³-fold greater than that of real-time PCR (1 ng) for soybean DNA detection. rtLAMP could detect down to 10% of soybean oil adulterated in the edible oil sample. Moreover, all commercial edible oil products were positively identified (6/6) using rtLAMP, whereas the real-time PCR only identified 4 out of 6.

For an overview of LAMP principles see our Analytical Explainers page.

Photo by P. L. on Unsplash

This review (open access) covers the main approaches for verifying tea traceability, including sensory analysis, stable isotope ratio analysis (SIRA), mineral element fingerprints, spectroscopy and mass spectrometry metabolomics, and emerging sensors.  The authors then discuss in some detail why some of these approaches are more – or less – applicable for different types of tea.

They argue that origin traceability of tea is not merely an analytical chemistry issue. The essential differences in the processing techniques of the six major tea types (green, white, yellow, oolong, black, and dark)  determine that the applicability boundaries of the same traceability technology may vary significantly among different tea types.

• The high-temperature kill-green process in green tea deactivates the polyphenol oxidase activity, preserving the original chemical fingerprint of the fresh leaves to the greatest extent.
• White tea undergoes the least processing intervention, and theoretically has the best traceability.
• The impact of the micro-fermentation process on the chemical profile of yellow tea remains to be systematically evaluated.
• Oolong tea’s withering and roasting processes result in a fermentation degree ranging from 10% to 70%, making the complexity of the chemical fingerprint’s interference from processing the most among the six major tea types.
• The full fermentation process in black tea converts a large amount of catechins into theaflavins and thearubigins, deeply reshaping the primary metabolite profile.
• The post-fermentation of dark tea, driven by microbial communities, triggers biochemical transformations that can last for months or even years, with the origin signal highly intertwined with factors such as the degree of fermentation, aging years, and tree age

Photo by 五玄土 ORIENTO on Unsplash

Food fraud has emerged as a significant and under-recognised public health threat, with documented global incidents resulting in severe illness, hospitalisations, and fatalities. International estimates suggest that up to 9% of the global food trade is adulterated.                                                                                                             

In South Africa, evidence of mislabelling, substitution, counterfeit products, illicit trade, and the use of unauthorised additives continues to surface, yet the national burden and regulatory response remain insufficiently characterised.This review synthesised peer-reviewed literature and articles from reputable South African media sources published from 2015 to December 2025, focusing on food fraud within the South African context. Searches were conducted across Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and PubMed, supplemented by Google Scholar and the EU Food Fraud Database, with emphasis on studies reporting fraud associated with South African food products. Standard PRISMA procedures guided the final selection of fifteen (14) eligible articles.

These studies reveal widespread food fraud driven mainly by economic gain. Common practices include substituting high-value products, mislabelling meat and seafood, altering dates on expired goods, and producing counterfeits with unauthorised additives and packaging. Collectively, these factors compromise consumer health, undermine industry integrity, and impede effective surveillance. Strengthening South Africa’s food fraud prevention ecosystem will require coordinated multisectoral engagement, targeted investment in detection technologies, and robust regulatory reforms. 

Figure 1 of the paper shows a hazard-based ranking of food fraud concepts based on severity and potential public health impact. The model categorises seven common food fraud types, i.e., unapproved enhancements, substitution, dilution, concealment, mislabelling, counterfeiting, and grey market, according to their relative risk. Higher tiers represent a greater potential for consumer harm due to toxicity, allergen exposure, or deception, while lower tiers reflect economic or regulatory concerns with minimal direct health risk.

Read full paper here.

The latest EU Agri-Food Suspicions report, for April 2026, has been published here.  As with previous months’ FAN have produced a rolling 3-month graphic to visualise the relative prevalence and trends in the main issues.  These are regulatory reports from within the EU (as compared to the EU JRC monthly collation, which is based on global media reports) and are only suspicions.  Due to the phasing lag in the EU publishing their reports, our own graphic always just misses the FAN monthly e-mail bulletin.  However, one clear trend is that relative prevalences are remarkably consistent over time.

Trends and highlights from our analysis include. 

• Despite species substitution having the highest public resonance, it accounts for a relatively low proportion of suspicions.  Most are activities that have a low entry hurdle for potential criminals.  The highest proportion of suspicions continue to relate to illegal trade – for example, unlicenced operators or attempting to evade import checks – and to falsified traceability documentation or certification. 
• There appears a sustained gradual increase in cases relating to excess water in frozen seafood, fish, or chilled chicken (including analytical indicators such as excess polyphosphates).
• Suspicions can be raised as a result of mass balance checks – for example, in April, a number of cases where the volume of poultry despatched for transport did not match the volume delivered
• March saw a spike in undeclared sulphite preservative in dried fruit.  It is possible that this was the consequence of a targeted sampling campaign.
• One interesting nugget: clementines that were judged to be falsely branded as “Portuguese” not on the basis of any written pack-copy, but on the basis of a picture.

FAN also produce a free annual aggregate of "most adulterated foods" from three of the commercial providers, which gives very high level smoothed data based on global official reports.  Our 2025 summary can be found here.

 Our interpretation of the Agrifood suspicion reports is subjective. In order to show consistent trends we have excluded cases which appear to be unauthorised sale but with no intent to mislead consumers (e.g. unapproved food additives, novel foods which are declared on pack), 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 intended only to give a high-level overview

In this issue, we share our 2025 Global Food Fraud Report and updates to FAN resources, including a new searchable database of open-access research reports and our expanded index of authenticity databases.

We also reflect on key milestones in our 2025 Annual Highlights, and spotlight activities across our network, such as the CoE meeting in
March and improved CoE pages allowing easier access to experts. You’ll also find FAN-tastic contributions from across our community, which explore real-world fraud challenges and solutions, alongside updates from EFF-CoP project and the growing EU Cluster for Food Integrity and Trust.

As always, we welcome your feedback on what you’d like to see in future editions, and we encourage you to share this newsletter with colleagues who may benefit from FAN’s resources. Together, we can continue to improve transparency, protect consumers, and support a fairer, more trustworthy food system.

Read newsletter here.

This monthly highlights report has been produced for FAN members by one of our Partner organisations, iComplai.

The report is an AI-generated prioritised digest.  It is blended from online regulatory and media reports of food fraud incidents and suspicions, giving a summary of each selected issue and suggested mitigation steps.

iComplai are one of a number of commercial providers of digital horizon scanning tools, many of whom are signposted on FAN.  We do not endorse any specific company.  We are grateful to iComplai for providing this free digest which we hope you find useful.

If you know of a tool which would be beneficial to signpost to our membership, or if you are interested in becoming a FAN Partner, then please get in touch.

This paper (open access) recommends the use of sorbitol as an endogenous isotopic reference marker compound for the detection of C4-type sugar adulteration in apple juice.

Apple juice is traded mostly as concentrate because it is more efficient to transport and store than single-strength juice.  It is valued according to its Brix measurement.  There is therefore a motivation to add sugars (increasing the Brix) in order to – in turn – mask dilution. .  Most cheap commercial sugars originate from C-4 plants, and chemical components may therefore have a different carbon isotopic ratio to equivalent chemical components originating from the unadulterated apple juice

The authors present an improved analytical method which utilizes the naturally occurring sorbitol in apple juice as an isotopic reference marker. The method uses liquid chromatography coupled to isotope ratio mass spectrometry (LC-IRMS) to determine the δ¹³C values of the major endogenous sugars in apple juice.

They report  that the δ¹³C value of sorbitol can be measured in the same analytical run as the other major sugar components and remains unaffected by the addition of exogenous C4-type sugars to the apple juice.  A difference between the sorbitol's isotope ratio and that of other components is therefore an indicator of adulteration.

They conclude that this method offers significant advantages over existing approaches, notably by eliminating the need for extensive sample preparation and multiple analytical methods thereby improving both analytical throughput and ease of use.

The authors of this paper include scientists from two of the laboratories in FAN’s Centre of Expertise network; GfL and Fera Science.

Photo by Katrin Hauf on Unsplash

This paper (purchase required, USD$31.50) investigates trnL (p6-loop) metabarcoding to verify the origin of honey by its floral signature.  It is a proof of concept based on analysis of 20 Turkish honey encompassing blossom and honeydew honeys purchased from local markets in a variety of local regions.

In particular, the researchers investigated the advantages of pooling samples for such “floral fingerprinting”.  They report that pooling of samples increased diversity recovery (higher richness and Shannon index) and improved the detection of both dominant and rare taxa that can be underrepresented in single samples. The individually sequenced blossom honey confirmed key label taxa, while the pool provided a landscape-level botanical profile consistent with declared compositions across products.