Understanding Food Fraud, Food Defense, Authenticity, and Adulteration of Foods
People expect that the foods they buy are what is identified on the label. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case. Although not always intentional, food fraud and adulteration are all-too-common problems.
How can food producers address these issues? Understanding some key terminology is the right place to start. It is also important to understand which foods are most vulnerable to fraud and alteration, along with how government programs are addressing these challenges. Equipped with this insight, processors can pursue testing that ensures their ingredients and food products are authentic and safe for consumers.
Key Terminology to Know
Food processors may encounter several terms that sound similar but have different meanings. Developing basic knowledge of food fraud, food defense, food authenticity, and adulteration of foods is essential.
Food Fraud
Food Fraud is any intentional action by individuals or businesses to deceive and take advantage of consumers. It comes in many forms such as:
- Dilution or substitution of ingredients with cheaper or low-grade alternatives,
- Using fake or stolen products to maintain the supply of the product,
- Using artificial enhancements to make the food more appealing to consumers, or
- Using undeclared or unapproved biocides in food products (Eurofins, 2021).
Food Defense
To combat food fraud, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) started Food Defense, an effort to protect food products from acts of intentional alteration. The FDA works with government agencies and private sectors to conduct research and analysis, develop training and outreach programs, and conduct enforcement exercises to prevent food fraud.
Food Authenticity
One of the ways to combat food fraud is by food authentication. It comprises a series of analytical tests that aim to find out the geographic origin, the identity of animal or plant species used in the food products, and details about the production process.
Adulteration of Foods
Among the most common types of food fraud is food adulteration. It is the act of debasing the quality of food by adding or replacing food substances with undeclared substitutes or removing an important ingredient. For instance, some fraudulent producers extract paprika oil resin from their products, leaving a sub-standard spice behind. Then, they sell the oil resin as a different food product to gain more revenue.
It's important to remember that while some adulteration is deliberate, other cases are unintentional. Still, either scenario can diminish the quality or safety of foods.
Why Is Food Fraud a Problem?
According to Food Standards Agency (FSA) estimates, food fraud costs the food industry around $10-15 billion in the US. Further, food fraud can have wide-reaching impacts. For instance, food consumption-related illnesses caused by adulteration with harmful substances can incur health care costs and loss of earnings to the consumers and their respective industries (FSA, 2020).
While not all food fraud is intentional, it's a frequent problem in today's food industry. All food processors need to know these most common forms of food fraud:
- Dilution or substitution of product ingredients
- Artificial enhancement of products for greater consumer appeal
- Use of undeclared or unapproved biocides, such as chloramphenicol in shrimp—or the use of other chemicals and biological agents that can harm both public health
- Removal of authentic constituents
- Misinterpretation of nutritional value
- Fraudulent labeling claims
- Formulation of fraudulent products
- Counterfeit and theft in gray markets (Eurofins, 2021).
How Long Has Food Fraud Been a Problem?
Food fraud isn't a new concept. In fact, it has been around since the medieval period. Before establishment of European empires, several exotic spices were sold in markets, but unknown to the buyers, these "spices" were nothing more than mixed dried local herbs. Some sellers would even add nut shells or dust to the mix of herbs and sell the falsified spices at a lower cost.
The practice went on through the Industrial Revolution when flour was extended with chalk or gypsum dust. During that era, milk was often so watered down to the point that chalk was used to adjust color. That era also saw sausages getting their reputation as "mystery meats," with a more recent example being horse meat marketed as beef. (Gonzalez, 2019)
What Kind of Food Products Are at Risk of Food Adulteration?
Not all food adulteration happens on purpose. Some happen by unintentionally such as in cross-contamination in the field, the manufacturing facility, or along the supply chain.
Unfortunately, some suppliers commit food fraud on purpose. For instance, the most common type of food adulteration is marketing refined olive oil as extra virgin olive oil. Further, some processors may blend olive oil with cheaper vegetable oils like sunflower, corn, palm, and rapeseed oils and market the concoction as pure olive oil (Casadei et al., 2021).
Olive oil, fish, organic foods, milk, and grains are the top five food products most at risk of food fraud according to the Congressional Research Service (2014). Other foods included in the list are honey and maple syrup, coffee, tea, spices, wine, and fruit juices.
Yan and colleagues (2020) report that technical opportunities, lack of managerial and technical controls, economic, cultural, and behavioral drivers, and opportunities in time and place are fraud factors that affect overall food fraud vulnerability.
How Are Regulatory Bodies Combatting Food Fraud and Adulteration?
Food defense is a program of the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) used to protect food from intentional adulteration. FDA issued a final rule on Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food against Intentional Adulteration in May 2016 to encourage food manufacturers to implement food defense strategies.
With the help of private sector and various government agencies, FDA conducts research and analysis, delivers training and outreach programs, and conducts exercises to remedy the problem of intentional adulteration of food products. They also provide tools and resources such as the Food Defense Plan Builder, Mitigation Strategies Database, and Food Defense Vulnerability Assessments to educate, prepare for, and respond to the ongoing problem.
Food processors also are doing their part to fight this problem. Due to increasing awareness of consumers, product ingredients, food origins, and food authenticity have become major concerns for the food industry. Today, food analysts use advanced, spectroscopic, non-destructive techniques like nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and chemometrics for the rapid determination of food authenticity. Other trends in food testing include isotopic analysis, chromatography, enzymatic analysis, and DNA analysis (Su et al., 2018).
Authenticity Testing To Combat Food Fraud
Detecting the authenticity of food and ingredients has been an age-old problem for consumers, regulators, and processors. As such, you need a partner laboratory that can make sure your products really are what they say on the label. The Eurofins network of laboratories, the world leader in food and feed authenticity testing, works with the largest food companies in the world to ensure product quality via a variety of tests from ingredient verification to adulteration detection.
Our teams of scientists have pioneered advanced and more accurate DNA-based analytical technologies for food testing. We have been improving the safety and quality of our customers' food products for over 30 years.
If you want to learn more about food fraud and do your part in combating this problem, contact us today.
