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Food Frauds: Examples and How to Stop Them

18 July, 2023
Federico Iannuli, Research Associate and Program Manager at The Lisbon Council
Drawing of various food items, including fish and oil (image generated from Midjourney v5)

Food Frauds and the hazards they entail

It's quite common to hear about Food Frauds nowadays, because there are specific drivers playing a crucial role in enabling them. For example, Food Supply Chains are becoming more and more globalised and complex, making it difficult to trace the origins and verify the authenticity of goods (iNECTA, 2023). And yet, finding a common definition to describe Food Fraud is not easy. However, numerous sources (Guzder, 2019; FAO, 2021; St Pauls Chambers, 2022; European Commission, 2023; FDA, 2023; iNECTA, 2023), indicate two key elements to Food Fraud: it must be an intentional act aimed at deceiving consumers, and it must results in some kind of personal gain (usually financial, but it can also be done for terrorism or activism). Frauds affect consumers' health and finances, and they also damage the honest and well-managed businesses that have to sell their goods at higher prices compared to fraudsters.

Almost every food and every stage of the Supply Chains’ processes can be targeted by illegal actions. However, some foods are more susceptible because of their increasing demand or due to the vulnerability of their Supply Chain.

 

The most common Food Frauds: Descriptions and Examples

 

Seafood

When discussing foods that are more often part of Food Frauds, it is impossible not to cite seafood. Being such a high-value product, it is common for fraudsters to try to gain as much as possible from it. The crimes committed are various. For example, seafood frauds comprise lying about the origin of the product (an action known as mislabelling) because it can come from illegal catch areas, or being caught over fishing quotas (Guzder, 2019; Food Fraud Advisors, 2022;). Moreover, cheaper seafood is often labelled as if it was of a more expensive variety, thus generating more money (FDA, 2023; iNECTA, 2023). For instance, according to a recent study, 48% of the "king scallops" tested in the UK were, in fact, Japanese scallops, a cheaper and less-coveted option (St Pauls Chambers, 2022). Other scams that are frequently carried out with frozen seafood involve changing the expiry date to make it look fresher, and adding ice to make it heavier before selling it by weight (FAO, 2021; Food Fraud Advisors, 2022; FDA, 2023)

 

Olive oil

Another popular and expensive food is olive oil, which therefore is subject to fraud schemes. The most common one is to dilute expensive olive oil with cheaper oils (such as rapeseed oil or sunflower oil), leading to a decrease in quality and nutritional value, and then sell it as 100% olive oil (Guzder, 2019; Pavlovic, 2019; St Pauls Chambers, 2022; FDA, 2023; iNECTA, 2023). This type of fraud is called adulteration. This happened in 2016 in Spain, where a mix of 80% of lower-grade oil, additives and artificial colours was labelled as extra virgin olive oil (iNECTA, 2023).

 

Milk

Milk may not be as valuable as the previous products, but the demand is massive. So, milk may be adulterated with water or other substances to sell more of the product at lower cost to the producer. As in the case of olive oil, this reduces the quality and safety of the final product, which is then sold as pure (FAO, 2021;St Pauls Chambers, 2022; iNECTA, 2023). There are two examples worth mentioning. The first one comes from Italy, where a secret tank was found in a truck used for transporting milk. This secret tank was meant to contain water that, using a remote, would have been released into the milk, after that the latter would have passed quality tests, and before being pumped into the purchasers’ holding tanks (Food Fraud Advisors, 2022). The second example is known as the “Chinese Milk Scandal”. In 2008, in China, some companies added a chemical substance, called Melamine, to their fraudulent infant formula milk, so that it would reach the amount of protein necessary for passing quality tests. The problem was that Melamine can be extremely toxic, causing kidney failures in babies (Guzder, 2019; Pavlovic, 2019; St Pauls Chambers, 2022; FDA, 2023; iNECTA, 2023).

 

Honey

Another food item that can be subject to fraud is honey. Honey is a valuable product and, as in the previously described cases, the most common type of fraud is diluting it with cheaper sweeteners, such as corn syrup or rice syrup, sugar beet syrups, fructose syrup or cane sugar. According to Food Safety News, as much as 76% of the honey sold in grocery stores is fake (Guzder, 2019; St Pauls Chambers, 2022; ALLIANCE, 2023b; FDA, 2023; iNECTA, 2023). Other types of scams involve the mislabelling of the country of origin or floral source, or misrepresenting it as organic. An example of honey Food Fraud happened in 2018 when honey from China was shipped to Canada, where it was "laundered" and sold as Canadian honey, with some illegal substances mixed in it (iNECTA, 2023).

 

How to fight these Food Frauds: The technologies promoted by ALLIANCE

Having clarified what Food Frauds really are, and how dangerous they can be, it is of utmost importance to find the best ways to cope with this problem. The ALLIANCE Project is precisely meant to offer some solutions. It is a Horizon Europe project that involves 25 organisations, and it aims to improve track-and-trace mechanisms while detecting adulteration. ALLIANCE will do so by adopting new technologies, such as Blockchains and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, to monitor the entire Food Supply Chain (ALLIANCE, 2023a).

One of ALLIANCE's pilots, or "demonstrators", is precisely related to honey. It is based in France and its objective is to trace organic honey from production to the point of sale thanks to distributed ledger technologies (like blockchains) and IoT. It will also monitor bees’ well-being with AI-enabled sensors (ALLIANCE, 2023b).

 

References