Tag Archives: food fraud

Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Food Imports Yes, Food Fraud No

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud, China
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

Almost one third of imported foods in China were rejected due to fraud, according to a 10-year detailed study published in Food Control. The report states that processed foods accounted for over 87% of the fraudulent products. Drinks, candy, cookies and meat are the most frequently adulterated items. Artificial enhancement is the leading reason for adulteration—for example, undeclared food additives, prohibited veterinary drugs, ingredient substitutes and inedible adulterants. The study will assist in the prevention of food fraud for imports into China.

Resource

  1. Li, D., et al. (Publish date March 2022). “Food fraud of rejected imported foods in China in 2009–2019”. Science Direct. Food Control.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Spice Up Your Pizza…with Olive Leaves

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food fraud, herbs spices
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

Who wants shredded olive leaves on their pizza instead of oregano? Herbs and spices keep being a target for food fraud, a European Commission study that analyzed nearly 1,900 samples revealed. The study showed that about 20% of herbs and spices are manipulated, with oregano leading the top of the list, followed by spices that include pepper, cumin, curcuma, saffron and paprika. Europe is a leading importer of herbs and spices at 300,000 tons a year. The entire supply chain from country of origin, processing, packaging, importing to distribution, is potentially vulnerable to fraud. In most cases, undeclared plant material was added, and sometimes toxic dyes were found—and these are detrimental to human health.

Resource

  1. Food Processing. (December 1, 2021). “EU study reveals herb and spice food fraud.”
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

In Not-So-Good Spirits

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food fraud, vodka
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

Fraudulent alcoholic beverages often carry health risks for consumers, since counterfeit products may contain contaminants such as methanol, chloroform, isopropanol and more, leading to kidney and liver problems, blindness and sometimes death. A store owner in the UK was fined for selling counterfeit vodka under the label of a famous Scottish distillery. The Foods Standards Agency is taking these (rare) cases of counterfeit alcohol in the UK extremely seriously due to the potentially serious health impact on consumers.

Resource

  1. Taylor , P. (November 10, 2021). “Liverpool store sold fake Glen’s vodka unfit for consumption”. Securing Industry.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Coffee That’s Not Just Full of Beans

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Coffee fraud
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

Fraudulent food and beverage products can sometimes have serious health implications. A fake soluble coffee product made its way to some small retailers in Germany and contains dangerous glass and plastic shards. The public is requested to report the counterfeit product. The investigation of this very serious, hazardous fraud is ongoing.

Resource

  1. Von Redaktion, B. (October 22, 2021). “Warnung: Erhebliche Gesundheitsgefahr durch gefährliche Produktfälschung von löslichem Kaffee”. ProductWarnung D-A-CH.

Learn more about foreign matter contamination in food during the upcoming Food Safety Tech complimentary virtual event, “Food Safety Hazards Series: Physical Hazards“, on Thursday, December 16 at 12 pm ET.

Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

The Family Business Of Food Fraud

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Organized Crime, food fraud
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 is heavily involved in farming and agriculture, while generating a yearly revenue of $28 billion in Italy alone. Besides the exploitation of farm workers, protection rackets and subsidy fraud, significant profits are made from fraudulent products, such as mislabeled or tampered olive oil, buffalo mozzarella and parma ham. Consumer and worker organizations are calling for more transparent supply chains and traceability of agricultural products, because these are growing and ongoing problems.

Resource

  1. Hanschke, K. (October 18, 2021). “Wie sich die Mafia im Lebensmittelhandel bereichert”. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

It’s Official: FDA Designates New Webpage to Food Fraud

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
FDA, Food fraud
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

Food fraud has become such an important issue that many governments are monitoring it much more closely. To keep producers and consumers informed on the latest developments, the FDA has generated a new web page on economically motivated adulteration (EMA). The page includes links on how to report food fraud (including a list of consumer complaint coordinators), important examples of adulteration (i.e., honey, olive oil and seafood), how food fraud is detected and monitored, enforcement and legal consequences such as recalls, seizures and import refusals, guidance documents to assist manufacturers and importers, and a list of import alerts.

Resource

  1. FDA. (November 4, 2021). “Economically Motivated Adulteration (Food Fraud)”.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Fish Fraudsters, Beware (At Least in Canada)

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food fraud, fish
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

Fish and seafood mislabeling is rampant in Canada, according to a report published earlier this year by Oceana Canada. To address the rising concerns of Canadian consumers, the Canadian government is finally consulting with the seafood industry on traceability from boat to plate. These suggestions are supposed to tackle mislabeling, illegal fishing, sustainability issues and unregulated fishing. Even restaurant owners and chefs have called Congress for action.

Resource

  1. Taylor, P. (August 22, 2021). “After fraud report, Canada looks at seafood traceability”. Securing Industry.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Food Fraud Detectives At A Reasonable Cost

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Walnut, food fraud
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.

Produce from specific countries of origin, such as olive oil or walnuts from a famous region, can achieve top prices in the marketplace. Fraudulent declarations of origin are causing millions of dollars of economic harm every year. Such fraud can be detected by investigating the oxygen isotope ratio, a costly endeavor until now. A newly developed oxygen isotope ratio simulation model eliminates the costly collection of reference data and allows a timely and cost-efficient region of origin determination of a wide array of plants.

Resource

  1. University of Basel. (October 11, 2021). “An efficient and low-cost approach to detecting food fraud”. Science Daily.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Natural Goes Methodical

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food fraud
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

The popularity of “natural” foods with consumers has increased exponentially over the past decade or two. While the term “natural” on a food label is not formally regulated by the FDA, “natural flavors” have been defined in the Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 as flavoring constituents derived from a naturally occurring source, such as spice, fruit, vegetable, herb, leaf and more. “Natural” flavors/aromas have specific spectroscopic fingerprints versus synthetically produced volatile organic compounds. This method combines gas chromatography and isotope ratio mass spectroscopy (GC-C-IRMS) to determine whether a fruit aroma is naturally or synthetically-derived, and can be used to build a database of natural flavors.

Resource

  1. Strojnik, L., et al. (July 5, 2021). “Construction of IsoVoc Database for the Authentication of Natural Flavours”. MDPI Open Access Journals.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Crisp, But Not Clean

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Palm Oil, Food Fraud
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

An especially perfidious type of edible oil fraud is the dissolution of inedible plastic material, such as polypropylene or polyethylene packaging material, in hot cooking oil during the frying process. This is supposed to prolong the shelf life and the crispness of deep-fried snack food, not surprisingly with serious health implications. Attenuated total reflectance fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) in combination with principal component analysis (PCA) provides a straightforward method to analyze samples directly with minimal preparation, to detect polymers in palm cooking oil, as done in this study.

Resource

  1. Ismail, D. et al. (2021). “Classification Model for Detection and Discrimination of inedible Plastic adulterated Palm Cooking Oil using ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy combined with Principal Component Analysis”. Vol 25 No 3. Malaysian Journal of Analytical Sciences (MJAS).