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Learn the lingo; food fraud terms explained

Food fraud occurs when food or drink is sold in a way that deliberately misleads or deceives consumers or customers for financial gain (Food Fraud Advisors, 2015)

(other definitions)

Food fraud occurs in two different forms:

1. Fraudulent activity that does not involve tampering with the food itself:

This includes activity such as avoidance of taxes, duties and quota restrictions (fishing), fraudulent paperwork such as forged importation documents, misrepresentation of origin, changing best-before dates and counterfeiting of popular brands.

2. Adulteration of food for economic gain:

This is sometimes referred to as economically motivated adulteration or EMA.  In this phrase, the word ‘adulteration’ is used to encompass many types of tampering, such as adding unauthorised substances, substituting undeclared substances for genuine components of a food or diluting a food product with cheaper substances.

Food fraud is a type of food crime, with food crime including food fraud and other activities such as the use of food shipments to mask drug trafficking and money-laundering through the trading of food and food commodities.

food fraud,defense,safety,security

Food fraud and the risks it presents to the food industry is a separate subject to food safety, although fraud-affected food can be unsafe.  Food safety relates to unintentional contamination of food and the presence of naturally occurring contaminants.

Food defence (food defense) is a term that has come to be defined as the effort to prevent acts of adulteration that are intended to cause harm to a food business or to consumers, such as acts of terrorism or attempted extortion.

Food security, as defined by the World Health Organisation exists “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”.

Risk or vulnerability?  In the language of food fraud, the term risk is usually replaced with the term ‘vulnerability’, so food standards bodies are increasingly talking about vulnerability assessments rather than risk assessments.  ‘Vulnerability’ is used because food fraud ‘risks’ do not exactly fit with the accepted definition of risk as something that has occurred frequently, will occur again and for which there is enough data to make quantitative assessments.  Vulnerability is a better term for food fraud, due to the fact that the ‘risk’ of a specific fraudulent activity occurring cannot be quantitatively assessed.

Horizon scanning is another term that has been co-opted to the language of food fraud.  Horizon scanning is the act of looking for and analysing threats and opportunities that will emerge in the medium to long term.  It is used across many industries, including the financial and health care industries.  Within the food industry, horizon scanning refers to the act of collecting information about current trends in food production and predicted incidences that could increase the likelihood of food fraud for a particular food material.  For example, climate change is likely to affect coffee production which could drive up prices and increase fraudulent activity in that sector.  Click here for the complete low-down on horizon scanning.

TACCP: Threat Assessment Critical Control Point.  TACCP = prevention of malicious threats to food.

VACCP: Vulnerability Assessment Critical Control Point.  VACCP = food fraud prevention.  Learn more about TACCP and VACCP here.

Intentional Adulteration:  Although food fraud activities often involve the intentional adulteration of food with unauthorised substances, within the food safety industry, Intentional Adulteration has recently been given a more specific meaning.  And it is not related to food fraud at all.  It is related to food defense, and more specifically to activities intended to cause wide scale harm to consumers.  There is a rule within the USA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), that addresses these activities.  It is known as the Intentional Adulteration rule.  According to the US FDA (2019), Intentional Adulteration is the deliberate contamination of food with a biological, chemical, radiological, or physical agent by an individual or group of individuals with the intent to cause wide scale public health harm.  How to protect against intentional adulteration. 

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Beyond vulnerability assessments

How to verify a food defense plan

The USA FSMA Intentional Adulteration Rule deadline is fast approaching, with implementation required by 26th July.  Food defense plans are our most requested service this month, and not just for companies in the United States.  Businesses that export to the US are also affected.

The Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule

The Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule requires food businesses to identify vulnerable parts of their food manufacturing processes, implement strategies to reduce the vulnerabilities and monitor and verify that those strategies are working.  As part of the verification processes, some experts are recommending that food businesses challenge their food defense system on a regular basis.  Food safety management system standards, including SQF Edition 8, also require that manufacturing facilities challenge their food defense system.  What exactly does it mean to ‘challenge’ a food defense system, and how is that different to monitoring and verification of the system?

Monitoring vs verification vs challenge testing

Monitoring, verification and challenge testing are different, but the terminology can be confusing when used with food defense plans.  Some commentators and trainers are using the three words almost interchangeably; however, the three words actually refer to different elements of a food defense plan.

Monitoring means, at its most basic level, to check that procedures are being followed and that processes are happening as they should.  The checking process must be documented.  So, the act of monitoring is documenting in real time the actions taken to follow a given procedure or the measured outputs of a specific process.

Within a food safety plan, an example of monitoring would be checking the internal temperature of three pies from each batch after a cooling step and recording the temperature on a form.  Within a food defense system, a mitigation strategy might be the implementation of a procedure to lock all external doors, or to leave all external doors locked.  For this procedure, the monitoring activity could be a once-per-shift process of checking and recording the lock/unlock status of each door.

Verification is the process of making sure that monitoring has been done properly.  When cooling pies, for example, verification could include a once-per-shift check by a supervisor or manager that the cooled pie temperatures are being recorded AND that appropriate action has been taken if the temperature has exceeded critical limits.  Verification also includes internal audits; the internal auditor checks that the managers have been signing off the monitoring records, that the records are complete and available for all shifts and that corrective actions have been properly recorded.

In our food defense example, verification could include a check of the door lock monitoring records by a manager or supervisor.  The manager would review the records to see that they were completed on time, at the correct frequency and that any deviations, such as a broken lock, have been identified and actioned correctly.  Verification of door lock status could also be included in a weekly plant walk-through by a manager.  Internal audits would check that all these activities were being done and recorded properly.

Challenge testing is real-world scenario testing of a system’s efficacy.  A challenge test aims to validate whether procedures are effective when implemented as expected, as well as highlighting any failures in implementation.  A challenge test is different to a verification process because it would usually test the implementation and effectiveness of many food defense mitigation strategies rather than focussing on one element such as door locks.

What is the weakest link in your food defense plan?

 

How to conduct a food defense challenge

  1. Decide on a challenge action. For example, a common food defense challenge test is a penetration test, in which an unauthorised person attempts to gain access to a sensitive area.
  2. Create a food defense challenge report. In the report document exactly what you plan to do in the challenge test.  Include what, when, how, who and next steps.

For example: A person unknown to staff (Ms Jane Doe, of Acme Services) will attempt to get from the main reception area into ingredient weighing area A.  She will be wearing a business suit covered by a lab coat.  Once there, she will remain for up to twenty minutes unless challenged by an employee.  She will then leave.

If the intruder is challenged, she will claim to be a new food safety consultant/pest control account manager/new human resources manager and attempt to remain in the area.

  1. Include written contingency plans in case of escalation, for example, what will be done if police are called.
  2. Get approval for the plan from senior management.
  3. In the report record the following:
    • Name of Senior manager who has signed off on this plan.
    • Names of people who have been informed of the challenge test
    • Names of people who will be working in the affected areas at the time of the challenge, have they been trained in food defense?
    • A description of what staff are supposed to do in this scenario; what procedures should be followed.
  4. Define and document the criteria for failure and success; what will happen if the food defense procedures are working 100% correctly; what will happen if the food defense procedures are working only partially; and finally, how might the scenario progress if there is a complete fail of procedures and systems?

For example, if the ‘intruder’ is able to remain in the ingredient weighing area for 20 minutes without being challenged by an employee this could be considered a complete fail of the food defense system.  If the intruder is challenged but can convince the employee to allow them to remain in the area unattended, this could be considered a partial fail; if the employee chooses to remain with the intruder to ‘keep an eye on them’ this could be considered a better outcome than leaving the intruder unattended.

  1. Run the challenge. Have a trusted staff member observe from a discreet distance.
  2. Describe in the report what happened.
  3. Convene a meeting of the food defense team and analyse the results of the challenge test.
  4. Perform root cause analyses and raise corrective action/s for any failures in the system.
  5. Close out corrective action/s
  6. Take action to prevent a scenario like this from reoccurring, based on the root cause analyses.

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Five things every food safety professional should know about food fraud

1. Food fraud is in the spotlight

Food fraud has been around for thousands of years but has recently become more prominent in the food safety and food certification industry, following the European horse meat scandal of 2013.  Although no food safety problems arose during that incident, it was realised that similar incidences could have serious impacts on food safety.  For that reason, food fraud and food authenticity have been introduced into most major food safety management system standards within the previous two years.

2. New terminology is being developed

Definitions related to food fraud and food integrity have been developed and refined and there is now consensus on the four key terms below, although the term food security still causes confusion at times.

food fraud,defense,safety,security

  • Food safety relates to issues of unintentional contamination, with the aim of reducing exposure to naturally occurring hazards, errors and failures in food systems.
  • Food fraud was defined by  Spink and Moyer (2011) as “a collective term used to encompass the deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering, or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients, or food packaging; or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain.”  More recently that definition has been updated to capture all types of food crime: Food fraud is deception, using food, for economic gain (Food Fraud Initiative, Michigan State University).  Within food fraud there are types of fraud that involve tampering with the food by adulterating or diluting the food.  This type of fraud is sometimes called ‘economically motivated adulteration’ (EMA).  Other types of fraud that do not involve adulteration are also deemed to be ‘food fraud’.  These include black market and grey market sales, theft, illegal importing, avoidance of tax and counterfeiting.
  • Food defence is related to systems that are intended to prevent intentional contamination of food, whether that be for economically motivated reasons or for malicious reasons such as terrorism or extortion.  A food defense plan is a plan that aims to protect food from intentional contamination.
  • Food security is unrelated to food fraud but is instead an issue of food supply and food access for populations who are under threat from food shortages.

Other terms to know:

  • Vulnerability assessments are assessments of vulnerability to food fraud, either at the raw material, product or facility level.  Within the USA the term vulnerability assessment often refers to a food facility’s vulnerability to malicious tampering of product on its site, either by its own employees or external forces.  Within Europe, and particularly as described in the most recent issue of the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) food safety standard, a vulnerability assessment is an assessment of a food material’s susceptibility to food fraud.  Learn more about vulnerability assessments.
  • Horizon scanning is the act of looking for and analysing threats and opportunities that will emerge in the medium to long term.  Within the food industry, horizon scanning means the act of collecting information about current trends and predicted incidences that could increase the likelihood of food fraud for a particular food material.  For example, climate change is likely to reduce coffee production which could drive up prices and increase fraudulent activity in that sector.
Coffee,authentic,fraud,horizon scanning
Future coffee harvests are likely to be affected by climate change

 

3. Food safety standards have become more rigorous

Food fraud prevention and mitigation measures are being introduced into all major food safety management systems.  The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), a group of food companies whose mission is to harmonize, strengthen, and improve food safety management systems around the globe, sets guidance for food safety standards.  Well known GFSI standards include BRC, FSSC 22000 and SQF.  Between 2015 and 2017, all GFSI food safety standards were updated to include requirements for food companies to perform a food fraud vulnerability assessment and have a food fraud mitigation plan in place.   Click here for the GFSI Food Fraud Position Paper.

The new requirements for vulnerability assessments and mitigation plans require more resources for most food businesses, particularly those with large numbers of raw materials and suppliers.

4. There are new regulatory requirements for food businesses

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in the USA has been implemented for most food businesses in the previous few years.  Within the FSMA rules, food businesses are required to address hazards from adulterants introduced for the purposes of economic gain.  These must be included in food safety hazard analyses and if hazards are found, preventive controls must be implemented.  This means that economically motivated adulteration (EMA), a subset of food fraud, must be addressed under the new FSMA rules.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) also includes specific requirements for ‘food defense’ which are aimed at preventing malicious adulteration and tampering as well as fraudulent adulteration.  This is known as the Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule.  The IA rule is being progressively implemented in the USA.  FSMA rules for IA will also be enforced internationally for all food facilities that manufacture food for export to America.  Click here for US FDA’s food defense guidance

food defense,vulnerability assessment,FSMA,
All American food companies will be required to have a food defense plan

 

5.  Detection of food fraud remains a challenge, despite new lab techniques

Our ability to detect food fraud has improved over the last few years, but challenges remain.  There are many technologies available, from traditional ‘wet’ chemical tests to spectroscopy and chromatography to modern forensic DNA methods.   Protein isoelectrofocusing (a type of electrophoresis) is a conventional test that provides information about the source of various milk proteins in a cheese and can be used to detect cows milk in “buffalo milk” mozzarella, for example.  PCR (polymerase chain reaction) techniques, in which a cow milk-specific gene is amplified and detected are being developed for cheese testing and they are claimed to be more specific.

Coffee variety testing has traditionally been done using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, a method that exploits the different amounts of chlorogenic acid and caffeine in robusta and arabica varieties.  However, a new method that exploits the different mitochondrial genetic markers in the two varieties will soon be able to achieve the same results quickly and easily in the field with ‘lab on a chip’ technology.

Researchers looking for fraudulent aloe vera can exploit its distinctive NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) profile, due to the position of acetate groups within a key polysaccharide in the plant.  The NMR profile represents a ‘fingerprint’ for aloe vera.

Another type of ‘fingerprinting’ is based on the spectra created by different ratios of stable isotopes.  For example, it is possible to tell the difference between corn-fed and wheat-fed chicken, using stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry by comparison with databases of reference samples.  This method has also been used to check provenance claims for meat and wine products.

Authentic beef mince
What meat is that?

 

Despite the surge in technology surrounding food fraud detection, it remains difficult to detect fraudulent adulteration unless you know what you are looking for.  As an example, DNA testing can be used to determine if beef mince has been made from a cow but can’t tell me whether it has been adulterated with undeclared beef offal.  Olive oil that is suspected of having been adulterated with other edible oil can easily be tested for such adulteration in a lab test, but verifying its country of origin is more difficult.  Adulteration of ‘arabica’ coffee with the cheaper robusta variety can be detected with a simple test but that same test will not disclose whether ground coffee has been adulterated with cheaper fillers such as corn, soybean or wheat, a practice which is common in some markets.  There are new ‘fingerprinting’ techniques that are designed to ‘flag’ any sample that is not authentic, no matter what the adulterant, however they can only be used if there is already an extensive database of authentic samples with which to compare the suspect sample.  Australian honey brand owners who were caught with supposedly inauthentic honey in an NMR-based fingerprint test claimed that the database used in the testing, which was done in Germany, was not suitable for testing Australian honeys.  Read more about the Australian honey scandal.

We have a lot of tools in our arsenal to answer questions about fraudulent food but those tools are only useful if we ask the right questions.

Need to learn more?  Want practical advice from expert food scientists? Click here for a free introductory consultation.

 

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Investigating susceptibility to food fraud

This page contains information and links to help you investigate, understand and summarise incidences of food fraud that have occurred or may occur within a food or food ingredient.  Some foods are more susceptible than others to economically motivated adulteration, substitution and dilution.  Understanding the susceptibility of an ingredient or raw material type is an important part of every vulnerability assessment process.

Susceptibility is investigated in two parts.  The first part is the general susceptibility of the food and is irrespective of  where it is purchased or sold; this can be determined using publicly available information.  The second part is specific to an individual food business.  The specific susceptibility of a food or ingredient is dependent on the characteristics of the supply chain, management of the supply chain and testing and auditing activities.

GENERAL SUSCEPTIBILITY

To investigate the general susceptibility of a food or ingredient to food fraud, use publicly available information about incidences of fraud that have occurred in the past and that might occur in the future.

There are a few different ways to access information about previous incidences and emerging issues with a raw material type, as shown below.

how to investigate info graphic

1. Online databases – access to historical data:

  • Decernis has an extremely comprehensive database of food fraud incidents which can be searched by food type and by adulterant type.  This database was developed and formerly operated by the US Pharmacopeial Convention (UPS). It also contains information about analytical methods.   www.foodfraud.org.
  • Food Fraud Advisors’ Food Fraud Risk Information Database is a free and open-access online database of food fraud incidences and emerging threats threats, organised by food type.  No log-in required.
  • HorizonScan contains historical data about both commodities and suppliers.  Users can set up email alerts for issues relevant to them.
  • FoodSHIELD was created by The Food Protection and Defense Institute, which is part of the University of Minnesota and partially funded by the USA Department of Homeland Security.  FoodSHIELD resources, including a database of economically motivated adulteration incidences are available to members.  Unfortunately membership is limited to representatives from local, state, and federal governments, the military and laboratories that perform analyses.  Members must first pass a membership checking process to ensure they are eligible to access the information. https://www.foodshield.org and https://www.foodshield.org/index.cfm/discover-tools-links/what-is-foodshield/foodshield-brochure/
  • The Food Protection and Defense Institute also operates a Food Adulteration Incidents Registry.
  • EMAlert is software that helps USA businesses with commodity scanning and assessing vulnerabilities for USA regulatory compliance.  Subscriptions start at US$2,500 per year.
  • The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) is managed by a group of European national food safety authorities and alerts its member states to incidences of food and feed safety and integrity.  RASFF publishes a searchable database for investigating incidences of food fraud.  To learn more about RASFF click here.  For direct access to the database, open the RASFF Portal.
  • The US FDA has a searchable list of food recalls and food safety alerts, including those related to food fraud.  http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/

2. Email alerts via subscription service:

  • Food Forensics, a laboratory located in United Kingdom, offer a monthly horizon scanning risk newsletter to members.
  • FoodChainID Horizon Scan is a paid subscription service that provides alerts on adulteration and fraud, as well as food safety contamination events.
  • Some trade associations provide email services to members.
  • Government-run food safety and food regulatory bodies in some jurisdictions send emails to interested parties.  Contact your local authority for more information.

3.  Direct intelligence:

  • Information can be obtained by asking law enforcement officials and government departments.
  • Suppliers can provide information about their material types.
  • Trade associations can be approached for information on food fraud and emerging issues.
  • Conferences and webinars about food fraud and food defence are held regularly and these can be a good source of information.

SPECIFIC SUSCEPTIBILITY

Specific susceptibility is investigated by considering all the characteristics of a specific material as it is purchased by an individual food business.  Characteristics that should be considered include those associated with the supply chain, purchasing policies and the format of the material.   Each characteristic should be considered with regards to how it could affect the degree to which a person may be motivated to fraudulently adulterate the material and how it could allow a person to:

a) gain access to the material,

b) commit fraud by adulterating, substituting or diluting the material or

c) avoid detection.

To ensure that all relevant characteristics are considered it is best to use a checklist and record observations against each item in the checklist.  Create your own checklist or use a checklist prepared by experts such as those found in a proprietary Vulnerability Assessment Tool.  There are a number of fraud assessment tools available on-line, with differing degrees of usefulness to anyone conducting a food fraud assessment.  The most comprehensive checklist for food fraud vulnerability assessments can be found in Food Fraud Advisors’ Vulnerability Assessment Tools which are available here.

Need more help?  Get easy-to-use, comprehensive downloadable templates in our online training course.

Visit our training academy today

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Announcing our new online training course

Food fraud requirements of BRC, SQF, FSSC and other food safety standards

How to meet the food fraud prevention requirements of major food safety standards

This course will make audit preparation a breeze.  It contains step-by-step instructions, worked examples and downloadable templates to help you meet the food fraud requirements of all major food safety standards.

sqf edition 8 food fraud

 

  • Learn why food fraud prevention has been included food safety standards
  • Hear food fraud stories that will surprise you and learn ways to protect your business
  • Get step-by-step instructions for food fraud vulnerability assessments and food fraud mitigation plans, using real life examples
  • Download templates for vulnerability assessments, mitigation plans and food fraud prevention procedures
  • Proceed at your own pace; skip forward and back through the lessons, start and stop at your convenience*

The content is a mix of written words and short video clips, plus downloadable worked examples.

Ask the trainer a question at any time.

What’s included?

  • Food Fraud Commonly Affected Foods Ebook
  • Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment template
  • Food Fraud Prevention Procedure template
  • Food Fraud Mitigation Plan template
  • Vulnerability assessment document – worked example
  • Raw Material Specification template
  • Food Fraud Team Job Descriptions
  • Top tips for audit preparation
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  • Optional exam and Certificate of Competency

Duration: 3.5 hours

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* course is available for 6 months after commencement