Food Fraud

Food fraud is the act of purposely altering, misrepresenting, mislabelling, substituting or tampering with any food product at any point within the farm–to–table food supply chain. Fraud can occur in the raw material, in an ingredient, in the final product or in the food’s packaging.

Food fraud occurs when customers are deceived about the quality and/ or content of the food they are purchasing, and is often driven by a substantial benefit for those selling food.

Types of Food fraud

• Dilution – mixing a liquid ingredient of high value with a liquid of lower value.
• Substitution – replacing an ingredient, or part of the product, of high value with another ingredient, or part of the product of lower value.
• Concealment – hiding the low quality of food ingredients or product.
• Mislabelling – placing a false claim on packaging for economic gain.
• Unapproved enhancement – adding unknown and undeclared materials to food products to enhance the quality attributes.
• Counterfeiting – copying the brand name, packaging concept, recipe, processing method, etc. of food products for economic gain.
• Grey market production/theft/diversion – sale of an excess unreported product.

To mitigate food fraud, a Vulnerability assessment is done. VACCP(Vulnerability assessment critical control point) is defined as a management process, a systematic method, to defend a food supply chain from any form of dishonest conduct that impacts negatively on the quality, integrity, or authenticity of food and drink. The “dishonest conduct” is motivated by economic gain. VACCP is used in the food industry to address food fraud/food authenticity-type issues.

E.g. of food fraud in India:

1. Adulteration of honey with sugar syrup
2. Mixing long grained cheaper rice with basmati rice