It’s been happening for millennia; the sale of food that is not what it should be. We call it food fraud, and poses serious risks to public health as well as costing the global food industry billions of dollars. Although it has been a well-known problem for many years, it wasn’t until the large-scale and well-publicised ‘horsemeat scandal’ of 2013, in which beef products were found to be adulterated with horsemeat, that the international food industry started to act in a collaborative way to tackle the issue. Since then, the food industry has discussed and implemented a range of measures designed to minimise the occurrence of food fraud. These measures include new regulatory requirements for food fraud prevention in the USA and changes to food safety standards in other parts of the world.
Food fraud occurs when food or drink is sold in a way that deliberately misleads or deceives consumers or customers for financial gain
For consumers:
- Click here to read an introduction to food fraud for consumers from Good Food.
- Have you experienced food fraud? Take the survey and find out now.
- What to do if you have been a victim of food fraud – who to contact.
For food industry professionals:
- Do our fast, free online training Introduction to Food Fraud
- Read an introduction to food fraud for professionals here
- Learn the lingo; find an introduction to food fraud terminology here
- Check out our acronymn decoder, and learn about the differences between HACCP, VACCP and TACCP
- Learn about the public health implications of food fraud (with a USA-centric view)
- Learn about the role of testing in food authenticity here
- What is a vulnerability assessment and why does the GFSI expect the food industry to do them? Click here for everything you ever wanted to know about vulnerability assessments.
- The Global Food Safety Initiative’s (GFSI) 2018 position on food fraud: Tackling Food Fraud Through Food Safety Management Systems (2018), https://www.mygfsi.com/news-resources/news/news-blog/1396-tackling-food-fraud-through-food-safety-management-systems.html
- Find training courses in food fraud prevention
- Who are the people behind food fraud? Learn about opportunistic and organised food crime here.
- Food fraud in the organic sector; is it as bad as they say? Read more here
- Learn about seafood fraud and mislabelling with these guidance videos from the US FDA and this free webinar from New Food
- Herbs and spices are on the food fraud hot list. Read about how oregano is affected here
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