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.
Organized crime in Spain laundered millions of euros by selling saffron adulterated with dyes and herbs, some of these adulterants being unfit for human consumption. Spanish police with the assistance of Europol busted an importer who adulterated imported saffron threads and sold them with the high-end La Mancha region designation. The supply chain for the organized crime scheme was operating across the EU, with 17 arrests made in the sting operation.
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.
