GLOBAL ALLIANCE ON FOOD CRIME

The Global Alliance (GA) is a coalition of international leaders who have agreed to work together on the prevention, detection and disruption of food crime.  The GA initially agreed to have a small number of founder participants, consisting of food regulatory and enforcement organisations from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, but are looking to involve any country that is willing and able to contribute to the aims and objectives of the GA moving forward. 

Members of the GA aim to collaborate as enforcement bodies to protect consumers from intentional acts of fraud or misrepresentation, wherever they take place within global food supply chains. Protection can best be afforded through coordinated international action and the sharing of information and good practice across borders.  The work of the GA is intended to complement but not duplicate work already underway in the regulatory/law enforcement, scientific and academic communities. 

For further information on the Global Alliance you can contact ron.mcnaughton@fss.scot.

1. Prevent food rendered unsafe or inauthentic through intentional acts of fraud or misrepresentation from entering or remaining in food supply chains;
2. Increase enforcement action in relation to food fraud, through collaborative activity, in accordance with relevant national food or criminal law
3. Support global prevention, detection and enforcement capability and capacity in this area;
4. Facilitate and build a global information sharing network amongst the global alliance members to prepare and respond to food fraud.

In April 2024, members of the Global Alliance on Food Crime (GA) met in person for the first time since the COVID 19 pandemic.  The meeting took place in Singapore over 2 days and tied in with the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) conference which was being held within the city at the same time.  Representatives from all five founder member countries of the GA were in attendance, either in person or virtually for the duration of the meeting.

Since COVID, the group have met on-line twice a year to discuss matters of mutual interest, however, these meetings have had to take place late into the evening and early morning in order to allow for the time differences.  Getting together face to face allowed most of the group to meet one another in person for the first time, which allowed for in depth discussion on an extensive agenda that covered the 2 day meeting.  One of the main areas of discussion, however, focussed on the GA’s strategic objectives and how the group could deliver outcomes to support these. 

It was clear that each member is already doing work in these 4 areas and a first step would be to capture all that work and consider where the focus needs to be moving forward.

Other things that were discussed at the meeting were current issues of note, emerging risks, crime prevention activities, good practice that could be shared and collaborative activity, amongst other matters.  The group are planning to meet virtually towards the end of the summer and then again in person to tie in with the Operation Opson meeting that is taking place in November.

Regular updates on the work of the group will be posted here over the next 12 months. 

For more information on the work of the Global Alliance please email ron.mcnaughton@fss.scot.

The next meeting is due to take place in early April 2024, where the members will develop actions around the GA's four strategic objectives, consider emerging food crime risks and how the GA can work together to mitigate impact, look at sharing good practice and discuss increasing group membership, amongst other things.

We will be providing regular progress updates on the GA page of the Food Authenticity Network.