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John Points posted blog posts
18 hours ago
John Points posted blog posts
Monday
John Points posted a blog post
It is accepted that there is no “silver bullet” to check for honey authenticity.  There are a plethora of test methods and analytical approaches, each of which can increase suspicion of sophisticated fraud.  A weight of evidence approach is…
Apr 15
John Points posted a blog post
Mixed-milk cheeses (cheese made with a mix of milk from different species) are common on the European market, particularly in Spain.  They present a motive to fraudulently increasing the proportion of the cheapest milk species above its maximum…
Apr 14
John Points posted a blog post
In this study (open access), the authors developed a classification model for shrimp (prawn) origin using fused data from Stable Isotope Ration Analysis (SIRA) and trace elemental profiling.  They built the model using reference samples from Ecuador…
Apr 9
John Points posted a blog post
This review (open access) examines state-of-the-art technologies developed to support traceability and anti-counterfeiting in agri-food supply chains, considering their application across the full spectrum of stakeholders. It includes sections on…
Apr 6
John Points posted a blog post
This study (open access) builds upon previously published work.  The authors expand the scope of multiplex digitalPCR (dPCR) analysis for undeclared GM soy to simultaneously check for 19 different GM events and the lectin (Le1) endogene, and proved…
Apr 2
John Points posted a blog post
One in four UK medium-to-large businesses experienced fraud in 2024.  The most common vulnerabilities cut across sector and food industry businesses have been amongst the victims.  They include cyberattacks, unauthorised push payment fraud, and…
Apr 1
John Points posted a blog post
Each year, we publish aggregated trends from some of the main commercial tools that log global food fraud incidents.  Our 2025 report is now available.
The number of regulatory food fraud reports published in 2025 remained low relative to food…
Mar 27
John Points posted a blog post
Here is our monthly graphic from the latest EC Reports of Agri-Food Fraud Suspicions, showing a rolling 3-month trend. 

 
Interpretation is full of caveats, explained below.  But there is a strong consistency in trends. 

The highest proportion…
Mar 25
John Points published an article
The International Conference on Molluscan Shellfish Safety (ICMSS) is the premier global forum for advancing shellfish safety. Join leading scientists, regulators, and industry experts to share cutting-edge research, discuss emerging threats, and…
Mar 25
John Points posted a blog post
Many of FAN’s posts tend to deal with the detection or prevention of fraud from a technical viewpoint; either detection methods, fraud incidence reports or risk management techniques.  At a fundamental level, however, fraud is a crime committed by a…
Mar 16
John Points posted a blog post
Given the diversity of traded bivalve molluscs (scallops, oysters, mussels etc), broad taxonomic coverage is essential for untargeted screening to verify species authenticity. 
To address this challenge, the authors of this paper (open access)…
Mar 15
John Points posted a blog post
The EC-JRC manuscript entitled "Interlaboratory validation of thirteen qPCR methods to quantify adulterants in culinary spices and herbs”, has recently been published (open access) in the journal of European Food Research and Technology.
The paper…
Mar 14
John Points posted a blog post
This paper (open access) proposes an approach to deal with surface scattering in the Near-Infrared (NIR) analysis of particulates.  The authors use coffee cultivarl testing as an example.
Surface scattering is a major confound in near-infrared (NIR)…
Mar 12
John Points posted a blog post
The European Commission launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform on 10 March, TraceMap, to accelerate the detection of food fraud, contaminated food and foodborne disease outbreaks across the EU. TraceMap is accessible to national…
Mar 11
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