What Is Food Fraud and How To Prevent It?

Food safety hazards aren’t the only threat we must be aware of in the food and beverage industry. Unfortunately, food fraud incidents are widespread in the news headlines, posing risks to consumers and manufacturers.

Food manufacturers must be aware of the risks and contribute to food fraud prevention. In this article, we will discuss food fraud, its definition, consequences, and other essential questions.

What Is Food Fraud?

Food fraud can refer to different cases of cheating and deception in food manufacturing and retail. In particular, food fraud is:

• Intentional substitution, removing, altering, or adding materials to food.
• Dilution by adding a material to the food product.
• False claims and statements about the food, ingredients, or process, for example, labeling it as organic when it isn’t.

Food fraud is an illegal action, usually done for financial profit. It can severely harm public health and lead to penalties or legal responsibility. Let’s discuss it more to understand the issue.

History of Food Fraud

Food fraud has been an everlasting problem. The concept has existed since ancient times, and it was one of the earliest food safety dangers, boosting the creation of many food safety regulations. This means that not only did food fraud exist many years ago, but people also fought against it.

There were cases when people would dilute wine with water or mix expensive spices with other herbs or even ash, or somebody would add chalk to flour. Through the times, new food safety laws and principles emerged to protect people from fraudulent activities. Now, it’s the FDA that protects public health from food fraud. 

Types of Food Fraud

Food fraud is a general term for more specific illegal activities, including adulteration, counterfeiting, mislabeling, etc. Let’s cover the most widespread in more detail.

1. Adulteration

Adulteration refers to the intentional addition, exclusion, dilution, or substitution of more expensive ingredients for cheaper and usually harmful ones. It’s done to increase the amount of the product or reduce the price.

The examples of food adulteration can vary from almost harmless ones, such as adding water to juice, to hazardous methods, like adding stones or dust to grains, mixing rotten vegetables with fresh ones, and adding chemicals to improve taste or color.

2. Counterfeit

Counterfeit foods are copies of legitimate food brands, which means copying the logo, name, appearance, or other characteristics. Counterfeit risks consumer safety, as a fake product can contain unauthorized and hazardous ingredients.

3. Simulation

Even though the simulation is close to counterfeit, the illegitimate product is designed to look like a copied food brand but is slightly different.

4. Mislabelling

Food mislabeling refers to improper or inaccurate product descriptions on the product label. For instance, producers can hide allergens or products of animal origin in vegan foods or make false statements that the product is organic, vegan, or sugar-free.

5. Document Forgery

In Food Safety Magazine’s article “Food Documents and Food Fraud Facilitators,” food document fraud is defined as facilitating food crime by deliberate counterfeiting, faking, or other illegal actions on food documents.

Some potentially forged documents could be certificates, testing results, bills, etc. 

6. Grey Market Foods

Foods on the grey market are legal and not counterfeited but sold through unauthorized channels. The prices for these products are lower than those in the official marketplaces. It can be done to avoid official regulations, taxes, controls, etc. Obviously, this type of trade is frowned upon and undermines businesses reputations and profits.

7. Diversion

Diversion is the distribution of products outside of target markets, such as relief food or promotional event products, to unintended places.

8. Unauthorized Production (Overrun)

Overrun means exceeding planned production amounts. A legitimate product is made in excess, which causes unregulated production amounts.

Commonly Affected Products

According to the Internet sources, some foods are more susceptible to fraudulent activities than others, so they are adultered the most:

• Fish
• Seafood
• Dairy
• Honey
• Meat
• Poultry
• Olive oil
• Spices
• Juice
• Wine, etc.

What Are the Consequences of Food Fraud?

We all understand that food fraud is a frowned-upon issue with only drawbacks. Let’s examine some of them to realize the extent of the problem.

1. Risks to Public Health

Consumers can suffer from minor and severe health issues like foodborne illnesses, allergic reactions, or even death if they consume adultered food. That’s the primary concern, as food safety is seriously undermined.

The FDA described a case with melamine in infant formula, causing 300,000 illnesses, 50,000 hospitalizations, and at least six deaths. The manufacturers in China added melamine to the formula to raise nitrogen levels and make the product look like it contained the proper amount of protein.

2. Legal Consequences

The FDA can cooperate with the Department of Justice to punish fraudsters. Companies and their owners involved in food fraud can face legal issues. For instance, Michelle Myrter, a Castle Cheese company executive, was sentenced to 3 years of probation, a $5000 fine, and 200 hours of community service for making and selling adulterated and misbranded cheese.

3. Brand Destabilization on the Market 

Food fraud can attract more scrutiny from regulatory authorities and other bodies. It can also lead to a loss of consumer trust and a brand’s reputation. Fraudulent practices may provoke a costly recall and withdrawal from the market.

For example, the FDA tested imported honey for adulteration. Honey adulteration has been a problem, so the FDA checked to see if the issue still exists. Indeed, 3 out of 107 samples included undeclared sweeteners. The FDA banned the violative product from entering the US and added the company and product to Import Alert.

The FDA continues testing honey for adulteration with sweeteners and works on improving investigation methods for other foods.

Food companies must remember that food fraud is hazardous for consumers, and they may be accountable for their customers’ health. In addition, the desire to gain more money through food adulteration may lead to legal issues and recalls, often ending in bankruptcy.

What Is the Root Cause of Food Fraud?

To fight against food fraud, we need to realize its root causes. Let’s investigate the different motivations for companies and individuals to commit food fraud.

1. Money

The main factor causing food fraud is profit. Economic advantage can motivate businesses to adulterate food to increase revenue and save money by buying cheaper and lower-quality ingredients.

2. Ethical Factor

Whatever opportunities arise, awareness and morality come first. An offender’s advantage drives them, and they ignore the importance of contributing to food safety and public health.

3. Supply Chain Complexity

A complex and global supply chain includes various stages and places. Controlling the entire supply chain becomes more challenging and less transparent, leading to increasing cases of fraudulent activities.

4. Lack of Control

Insufficient control measures can worsen the situation. Businesses are more tempted to cheat in production. The purpose can be the same – financial motivation – but now it’s even easier to do that, as supposedly no one will notice.

5. Technology

Technology such as internet marketing and false advertising can facilitate food fraud by misrepresenting a food’s ingredients and quality.

Overall, there are various incentives for food fraud, and it’s crucial to understand why, where, and how it can happen to help facilitate food fraud prevention.

How To Prevent Food Fraud?

Now that we know how detrimental food fraud is, it’s time to discuss how to prevent it from affecting your food and beverage business.

1. Food Safety Compliance:

Food safety is a vital component of any process. The more you strive to adhere to regulations, the stronger your business will be against food adulteration threats. Regulatory compliance will help you improve your product, enhance performance, gain transparency, and boost all the processes in the facility overall.

2. Food Defence Program:

A food defense program is integral to ensuring the integrity and safety of the supply chain. This program will include a vulnerability and risk assessment, monitoring, mitigation, and other steps.

To learn more about food defense, read our article about food fraud and food defense programs to prevent adulteration.

3. Food Traceability Program:

Enhanced food traceability will allow you to gain complete supply chain visibility, so you won’t miss a blind spot where a fraudulent action can happen.

4. Food Safety Certifications:

Food safety certification will significantly reduce food fraud risks in your business and strengthen your market position. It will help you improve your food safety practices so you don’t miss a potential food fraud risk.

If you are wondering what food safety certification to choose, check out our article, which answers the question, “What is the best food safety certification?”.

5. Supplier Management:

You must always verify and control your suppliers. Check for certifications and documentation and monitor their performance. It’s crucial for you as they directly impact the quality of your production.

6. Employee Training:

Employee training is integral to any food safety practice, as it helps spread awareness on the topic. In this case, you will teach your workers about the importance of food fraud prevention and its methods.

7. Improve Monitoring and Analytics:

Food companies must have efficient monitoring systems to ensure they are fully aware of the processes. Proper analysis and testing will help find discrepancies and promptly mitigate them.

Prevent Food Fraud With FoodReady

Various processes required for food fraud prevention are complex, so you will definitely need a software solution to make your food production safer.

FoodReady food safety software strives to ensure food safety in the global supply chain, and partnering with us will help you achieve a transparent supply chain. What FoodReady features will help you prevent and tackle food fraud?

1. Food Traceability System

FoodReady will become an asset to building a food traceability system to ensure you track the products in the supply chain, enabling supply chain visibility. This will help you catch any potential food fraud attempts.

2. HACCP Builder and Food Safety Management

Our goal is to digitize food safety. We will help you build your HACCP plan, prepare for a food safety audit, manage food safety compliance, and do many other things related to ensuring product safety and consistency.

3. Monitoring and Analytics

FoodReady software helps make data-driven decisions and get a full picture of what is happening in production. You will receive real-time insights and be able to assess risks and prevent them.

4. Production Management

The feature will enable efficient production planning. You will configure bills of materials quickly and reallocate products wherever you need them. Recipe management will become easier to handle.

5. Supplier Management

We know the role suppliers play in your food and beverage company. With the FoodReady supply chain management feature, you can approve suppliers, manage supplier documentation, and control supplier compliance.

Implementing a food safety software solution will significantly reduce food fraud risks and help you save your brand integrity, grow profits, and contribute to food safety.

Conclusion

Food fraud is an unethical and unauthorized substitution, dilution, mislabelling, or other form of cheating with food to enhance taste, color, production amounts, etc., and gain more profit. Food adulteration can take many forms, but any fraudulent activity can adversely affect food businesses, especially if it causes foodborne illnesses, injury, or death.

Every food and beverage business must know the risks and learn how to prevent food fraud from impacting their businesses and people’s lives. Preventative measures will include following food safety rules, implementing a food traceability plan and food defense program, etc.

FoodReady is eager to help you with that. We will help you ensure 100% food security. Contact us to learn more!

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