Incident Trends

There are a wide variety of tools that scrape the internet for reports, or suspicions, of food fraud and collate trends. Some use these trends to make predictions. FAN has compiled a list of tools in common use. This page is only part-visible unless you are signed in as a FAN member; sign up for free here. This list of tools is not exhaustive and FAN does not endorse any specific commercial provider(s).

If you know of other resources that it would be useful for FAN to signpost to, then please let us know.

Analysis of macro-economic trends and risks is only the start of any vulnerability assessment. If you are a food manufacturer or hospitality business then it is important to move on to considering how these risks impact - or not - your own specific raw material supply chain, and where your own vulnerabilities lie. See our other Food Fraud Prevention pages for more information/ guidance.

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Listed alphabetically. Different reports collate different data in different ways, giving different insight. It is best practice to look at a variety of sources.

EU Agri-Food Suspicions – These are solely EU Official Reports, and only suspicions. The root cause of each incident is unknown. The data include cases less likely to be deliberate fraud such as pesticide residues above their MRLs or unpermitted (but labelled) additives.

The JRC Monthly Food Fraud Reports on the EC Knowledge Platform are are monthly collations, solely of media reports, which evolved from the MEDISYS platform. They exclude cases not in the public domain, and can be biased by shocking but highly localised incidents in local food supply within poorly regulated countries. The JRC collation underpins a searchable front-end for media reports of food fraud incidents. It allows filtering by commodity, country, fraud type and other key criteria.

The Food Industry Intelligence Network (Fiin) free SME Hub. This excellent resource collates anonymised UK industry test results for the benefit of Small and Medium Enterprises in the food sector (registration and approval required to obtain login).

Listed alphabetically. Different digital tools collate different data in different ways, giving different insight. Some use Predictive Analytics to forecast fraud risks.

FOODAKAI uses AI to monitor global food-safety incidents, evaluate supplier histories, and prioritise risks that are specific to their clients' ingredients and products. Clients upload their own supplier list and the software aims to produce a bespoke supply chain map with risks and vulnerabilities identified.

The FoodChainID Food Fraud Database originated from the USP Food Fraud Database, subsequently curated by Decernis. It is a manually curated database, which includes food fraud reports from media, regulators and scientific literature. All entries are researched and verified by human analysts before upload. It therefore holds fewer entries than other systems but tends to include more background about each report and avoids replication of the same incident from different reports.

Fera's Horizonscan is one of the longest-established platforms. It offers real-rime insights into over 500 commodities, spanning 180 countries and 22,000 suppliers, with data on hazards ranging from food fraud to allergens. Functions include customisable dashboards, checks on specific suppliers, and bespoke e-mail alerts.

iComplai is a tool that uses AI to correlate risk reports from media and from regulatory authorities, and uses AI to highlight significance and insight. It aims to give real-time early warning of risks with either raw materials or suppliers.

Food Forensics' Knowledge Base combines reports of incidents and suspicions with information and forecasts of commodity supply and demand; for example harvest failures, weather patterns, oversupply or regulatory changes. It provides a customisable risk dashboard by commodity and country of origin.

Safety HUD, an online database tool offered by Mérieux NutriSciences, monitors international food fraud and safety alerts to reinforce the risk assessment of food products and raw materials, with the aim of increasing the security of global food supply chains.

SGS Digicomply is an AI-enabled tool that collates global food regulatory updates, restricted substances lists, as well as food safety and food fraud incident reports.