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Hi all,
Recent mainstream coverage has again highlighted how persistent food fraud is, especially in commodities like honey, edible oils and spices. The thread running through many examples is familiar: detection methods are improving, but food crime still thrives because it’s under-reported, surveillance is uneven, and supply chains are complex.
What stood out to me is the “missing middle” between:
lab testing (powerful, but not always fast/cheap/field-deployable), and
basic traceability/QR codes (useful, but often easy to copy and not routinely checked).
Given FAN’s role in sharing best practice and tools, I’d love the community’s view on practical ways to strengthen that middle layer — making fraud harder to repeat and making verification low-friction in the real world.
Questions for the group:
For honey/oils/spices, what screening + confirmatory approach is proving most defensible, and where are the gaps?
What has actually worked to make goods-in / point-of-sale verification routine (not optional) without adding too much cost/friction?
Do you see value in combining tamper evidence + item identity + simple smartphone checks, so substitution/diversion becomes detectable through behaviour patterns (frequency/geography), even when lab capacity is limited?
Keen to learn what’s working in practice and where innovation is most needed.
Thanks Jason
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Replies
We’ve built ASLI (Authentic Scan Legit Identifier) to address the “missing middle” between powerful lab methods and everyday operational reality. In short, ASLI focuses on:
- Tamper-evident, copy-resistant labels (so identity is harder to clone than basic QR codes)
- Smartphone-based verification that can be done at goods-in, distribution, or by consumers
- Scan intelligence to flag suspicious patterns (repeat scans, unexpected geography, abnormal scan velocity), which can help trigger targeted lab testing rather than trying to test everything
This isn’t meant to solve compositional adulteration by itself — labs remain essential for that — but it can reduce opportunities for substitution, diversion, and relabelling and create better “chain-of-custody confidence” from producer to shelf.
If anyone is willing to share insights, I’d love your view on:
1. Which categories benefit most from item-level verification (honey/oils/spices vs complex multi-ingredient foods)?
2. What typically drives adoption: retailer requirements, export compliance, brand protection, consumer trust, or incident response?
3. Any pitfalls you’ve seen (e.g., sticker transfer, user non-compliance, scanning friction)?
Happy to share more details or learn from others working on similar prevention + verification layers.
Do visit www.theasli.net
Jason