Find records of fraud such as those discussed in this column and more in the Food Fraud Database, owned and operated by Decernis, a Food Safety Tech advertiser. Image credit: Susanne Kuehne
History has its fascinating stories on food rackets and food fraud. In the 1930s, the American artichoke market was controlled by the Sicilian mafia, since the artichoke was a highly popular and priced vegetable. New York City’s mayor targeted the corrupt artichoke trade with a brave sting operation. Agro-mafia operations often fly under the radar and target everyday goods such as produce, olive oil, alcoholic beverages and more. Many of these activities involve fraudulent products.
Susanne Kuehne joined Decernis in 2016 as senior manager, business development. She has 20+ years of experience in the chemicals, plastics, coatings and beverage spaces. Kuehne is located at the Washington, D.C. office, but is originally from the Stuttgart, Germany area. She studied chemistry and business in Germany, then worked for Grace GmbH in Worms, Germany before moving to the United States in 2000. She worked for Grace in the United States before joining the beverage industry for eight years. Kuehne’s focus is food contact and chemical industry clients world-wide, across the multiple disciplines Decernis covers.
Kuehne holds a Dipl.-Ing (FH) Farbe/Chemie from Fachhochschule fuer Druck, Stuttgart, and a Dipl.-Betriebswirt (FH) from AKAD Fachhochschule, Lahr.
