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• The Pathogen Files: Campylobacter

• What’s new in the Knowledge Vault

• 2 Unusual food safety incidents

• Crimes against cheese

• Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents

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Happy Independence Day, Americans!

I’m starting this issue with a shoutout to 👏👏 Sanjuana, Simione, Esalud from the dry mix company and Mary from the essential oil company 👏👏 for upgrading to paid subscriptions. Your subscriptions help keep this publication independent and ad-free. Thank you.

But the biggest shoutout is for 👏👏Helen 👏👏 who is a long-term Good Apple subscriber – one of the beautiful and generous readers in our top tier whose subscriptions support scholarships for academics and students. Thank you, Helen.

We’re continuing our pathogen files series with Campylobacter this week, followed by 2 unusual food safety incidents. Plus, you won’t believe what a YouTuber did with a wheel of Parmesan cheese.

And, in this week’s food fraud news, criminology researchers who used cost of crime economic frameworks to estimate the cost of food fraud in the United Kingdom have reported that food fraud occurs at a lower rate than other fraud crimes. That’s something to celebrate!

Welcome to July 2026

Here’s your guide to everything new in the Knowledge Vault this year

Welcome to the second half of 2026 (that came quick!)

The Rotten Apple’s Knowledge Vault is a curated collection of articles extracted from past issues - think evergreen guidance, deep dives, curated collections and expert insights. If you’ve ever needed specific information and couldn’t remember which issue it was in, it might just be in the Knowledge Vault.

Here’s a small portion of what we’ve added to the Vault this year:

• Spice Fraud - An Introduction — how fraud in turmeric, saffron, cinnamon, pepper and chilli happens, and how it’s detected

• Food Safety Standards Library — key standards from BRCGS, IFS, SQF and FSSC, all in one place

• Guide: How to Perform Red Flag Reviews for Supplier Integrity — with downloadable checklist

• Food Safety Guidance Library — key guidance documents to support compliance and risk mitigation

• How to Perform a Mass Balance: Step-by-Step Guide — with downloadable worksheets

Visit the Knowledge Vault for the full library.

Visit The Knowledge Vault

The Pathogen Files: Campylobacter

Another of our super-popular pathogen files: everything you need to know about this foodborne pathogen, without the fluff and filler.

What is Campylobacter?

Scientific Name: Campylobacter jejuni (also C. coli, C. fetus)

Also affectionately known as ‘Campy’.

Classification: Bacteria

Mode of Action: Causes gastrointestinal illness by infecting the intestinal tract.

Morphology: Gram-negative, spiral-shaped rod, motile.

Reservoirs: Campy is found in the intestines of many animals – especially birds, cattle, and other livestock; can also be found in non-chlorinated water and flies.

Growth Characteristics: Microaerophilic (requires reduced oxygen: 3-5% O₂, 2-10% CO₂), fragile in the environment, sensitive to drying, heating, disinfectants, and acid.

Unique Traits: Not all strains are pathogenic. However, many strains isolated from chicken meat are pathogenic.

Impact and Burden

Campylobacter jejuni is a leading cause of bacterial diarrhoeal illness in the United States, causing more illnesses than Shigella and Salmonella.

Geographic Prevalence: Not carried by healthy people in the USA or Europe, but widely present in animals and nature.

Implicated in Foodborne Illness: Common

Commonly Implicated Foods

Poultry, raw milk, other meats, and contaminated water.

Routes to Illness

Contamination Sources: Contact with infected animals, contaminated food or water, and flies.

Contributing Factors: Hygiene failures, improper cooking and cross-contamination between raw and cooked foods. Cold chain failure can contribute, but Campylobacter is sensitive to freezing and drying.

Illness Mechanism: In humans, Campylobacter colonises the intestinal tract, triggering gastroenteritis.

Infective Dose: The infectious dose of Campylobacter is considered low, ranging typically from 500 to 10,000 organisms, with some studies showing infection with as few as 360–800 colony-forming units (CFU) (Kaakoush et al. 2015).

Symptoms, Duration

Onset of Symptoms (Incubation period): Usually 2 to 5 days after infection, but can range from 1 to 10 days.

Symptoms: Diarrhoea (sometimes bloody), abdominal pain, fever, nausea, vomiting, headache.

Duration: Typically 3 to 6 days. Usually resolves by itself.

Secondary/Long-term Symptoms and Outcomes: Campylobacter infection is a recognised trigger of reactive arthritis, and C. jejuni is one of the most common infectious triggers of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune paralysis and there is one recorded case of toxic shock syndrome.

Mortality Rate: Low; higher in the immunocompromised, young children and the elderly.

Prevention, Control

Food Industry Measures: Maintaining proper hygiene during food handling, ensuring appropriate temperature controls to prevent bacterial growth, thorough cooking, and preventing cross-contamination. Pasteurisation of milk. Effective hand washing protocols and exclusion of infectious food handlers.

Case Study: Thousands of cases of Campylobacter, including 4 deaths and 3 cases of Guillain‑Barré syndrome from contaminated drinking water

In 2016, a large waterborne Campylobacter outbreak was traced to a municipal water supply in New Zealand.

• Size of outbreak: Between 6,260 and 8,320 cases were estimated, with 953 physician‑reported cases, 42 hospitalisations, 3 Guillain‑Barré syndrome cases and at least 4 deaths linked to the outbreak.

• Source: Untreated, groundwater‑derived reticulated drinking water supply serving Havelock North township.

• Microbiological investigation: Campylobacter isolates from patient stool, groundwater samples and sheep faeces from adjacent paddocks underwent whole-genome sequencing, identifying 12 genotypes in human cases, several of which overlapped with genotypes from water and sheep.

  

• Root cause(s) and contributing factors:

  • A heavy rainfall event caused drainage of sheep faeces into a shallow aquifer from which the drinking water was drawn.

  • The water supply was untreated, with insufficient barriers in the water safety system, allowing Campylobacter contamination to reach consumers.

  • Agricultural intensification near the source increased the risk due to faecal contamination.

  • Reliance on routine surveillance rather than proactive source protection meant the contamination was discovered only after clinical cases emerged.

This outbreak is a classic multi‑barrier failure example: high environmental loading, inadequate source protection, absence of treatment, and delayed recognition.

Source: Gilpin, B.J., Walker, T., Paine, S., Sherwood, J., Mackereth, G., Wood, T., Hambling, T., Hewison, C., Brounts, A., Wilson, M., Scholes, P., Robson, B., Lin, S., Cornelius, A., Rivas, L., Hayman, D.T.S., French, N.P., Zhang, J., Wilkinson, D.A., Midwinter, A.C., Biggs, P.J., Jagroop, A., Eyre, R., Baker, M.G. and Jones, N. (2020). A large scale waterborne Campylobacteriosis outbreak, Havelock North, New Zealand. Journal of Infection, 81(3), pp.390–395. doi:10.1016/j.jinf.2020.06.065.

More about Campy

• Mwangi, A., Kunyanga, C., Sogin, J.H., Ngala, S., Benard Aliwa, Onsare, R.S. and Ndiritu, A. (2025). Prevalence of CAMPYLOBACTER in specific food and food products: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, pp.1–14. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2025.2539402.

• Epps, S.V.R., Harvey, R.B., Hume, M.E., Phillips, T.D., Anderson, R.C. and Nisbet, D.J. (2013). Foodborne Campylobacter: Infections, Metabolism, Pathogenesis and Reservoirs. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, [online] 10(12), pp.6292–6304. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10126292.

Main source: United States Food and Drug Administration (2012). Bad Bug Book, Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins, Second Edition. Available at: https://www.fda.gov/media/83271/download

2 Unusual food safety incidents

1. Unusual recall: infant formula for unacceptable colour and odour

An infant formula company in France is recalling one batch of infant formula after reports of dozens of illnesses. One infant was hospitalised, and a stool sample was found to contain adenovirus; however, no pathogens were detected in the product.

Intriguingly, the manufacturer also received complaints about the colour and odour of the batch, confirmed by organoleptic testing. Cereulide toxin was not detected. The organoleptic changes are thought to be due to excessive heating of the batch. French authorities said the colour and odour changes make the product unfit for consumption, and a recall was initiated.

Complaints prompt infant formula recall | Food Safety News

2. Unusual root cause: Dried noodles linked to a widespread Salmonella outbreak

A long-term and geographically large salmonellosis outbreak has been discussed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), with flavoured noodle products from one brand produced in Ukraine flagged as the most likely source.

This is unusual because flavoured noodles are rarely linked to illnesses caused by heat-sensitive non-toxin-forming bacterial pathogens such as Salmonella, which would usually be deactivated when flavoured dried noodles are prepared as directed using boiling water.

Nevertheless, there have been 106 confirmed cases across 13 EU countries plus the United Kingdom since November 2025, with one source reporting that some affected children may have eaten the noodles raw.

Comment: This reminds me of the deadly Listeria outbreak from heat-and-eat pasta meals in the United States last year, because some experts suspected that consumer cooking had effectively been treated as a defacto Listeria CCP (critical control point) by the pasta meal manufacturer.

In the current case, it’s possible that Salmonella controls similarly relied on consumers preparing the noodles properly and not eating them raw.

Got to admit, my kids frequently ate instant noodles raw as teenagers, and it never occurred to me that the flavour sachets could be a food safety risk - although it definitely should have, because high-fat, low-moisture powders are well known to support the survival of Salmonella.

Read more: Multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Stanley infections linked to flavoured noodle products | EFSA

Crimes against cheese

“We’re going to be banned from Italy after this”

… So said the YouTuber who decided to see if he could make car tyres out of a $1,200 wheel of Parmesan cheese.

Yes. Yes you are. The mind boggles.

Also, this is a definite crime against cheese.

Click the image below to watch the cheese wheels experiment in all its horrific glory.

Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news and incident reports

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Authenticity or label problems in 97% of Dubai-style chocolates!
📌 Adulterated fennel seeds
📌 Black pepper method
📌 Incidents with beef, cheese and vehicle cleanliness reports

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

Good news about fraud in the food industry?

A new paper published in the Journal of Economic Criminology suggests that fraud is less prevalent in the food industry than in other industries.

The authors estimated that food fraud costs the United Kingdom £ 0.4 - £2 billion annually, which is lower than other industries. Why? Because

Read more

Subscribe to The Rotten Apple

In this week’s episode:

• The Pathogen Files: Campylobacter

• What’s new in the Knowledge Vault

• 2 Unusual food safety incidents

• Crimes against cheese

🍏 For a transcript and sources, see Issue 246 🍏

Cover image: Timeline of a Campylobacter outbreak, Gilpin et. al. (2020)

But behind the bright colours and tempting aromas, the global spice trade has a dark side. The high value of herbs and spices, together with their complex supply chains and the difficulty of visually verifying their purity, make them one of the most frequently adulterated food categories worldwide.

This is an introduction to food fraud in spices for food professionals, purveyors and policy makers.

A large survey of spices and herbs (n = 1885), carried out by the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre for Food Fraud and Quality in 2019, found spices including pepper, cumin, turmeric (curcuma), saffron, paprika/chilli and oregano to have suspected adulteration rates of 6% to 48% of samples (n = approx 300 each spice). Chilli/paprika was the ‘best’ with 6% adulteration. Saffron, cumin, turmeric and pepper were moderately affected, at 11% - 17%, and oregano was the ‘worst’ with 48% of samples affected.

Reminder: Herbs and spices refer to different parts of the plant. Herbs relate to the green parts, while spices come from other parts such as bulbs, roots, bark, flowers and seeds.

Oregano, cinnamon and chilli consistently appear among the most commonly adulterated herbs and spices globally. This is largely because they are traded in large volumes and are often sold in dried, ground or shredded forms that hide visual clues of tampering.

Ground cinnamon can be bulked out with cheaper plant materials or inorganic materials such as brick dust. In addition, lower‑grade cassia is sold as “true” cinnamon. Chilli powders are affected by the addition of unauthorised synthetic dyes to boost colour intensity.

Both “true cinnamon” (Cinnamomum verum) and “cassia cinnamon” (Cinnamomum cassia) are sold as spices. True cinnamon is also known as Ceylon cinnamon. Cassia cinnamon contains higher levels of naturally occurring coumarin (a toxic benzopyrone) than true cinnamon. In Europe there are legal limits for coumarin levels in foods.

Year after year, spices appear among the top food commodities affected by food fraud.

As Ron McNaughton, head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit, told The i Paper in 2022, “There is no doubt that our food supply chains are under significant pressure as a result of Brexit, Covid, the war in Ukraine, and the general cost of living crisis.

“All these factors have the potential for criminals and organised crime groups to exploit… Spices are a commodity which are vulnerable to criminal exploitation.”

In the same article, The i Paper reported that it had found an India-based spice trader openly advertising coffee bean and black pepper husks online, on the basis they could be “used in grinding [of spices] to lower the production cost”.

In 2024, the UK National Food Crime Unit flagged continued risks of adulteration within the herb and spice sector in its Food Crime: Strategic Assessment Report (2024).

How they fake it

• Cardamom – addition of colourants.

  Food safety officials in India have reported that cardamom pods are being illegally dyed by farmers because consumers expect cardamom pods to be bright green, when in fact good-quality pods can be naturally pale green or yellow in colour.

• Pepper – diluted with fillers, adulterated with colours. Whole seeds are fraudulently replaced with papaya seeds.

  A targeted market survey of spices and spice blends in Canada found curry, garam masala, tandoori masala and cayenne pepper contained non-permitted colours or colours beyond the levels permitted in the regulations at a rate of 6% of samples (n = 101). The spices and blends originated in Canada, Iran, India and Pakistan.

• Saffron – adulteration with non-stigma parts of the crocus flower, use of safflower parts, the addition of dyes, and the misrepresentation of origin.

• Chilli – addition of colourants, including Sudan dyes, red oxide pigment and rhodamine-B dye. Can also be adulterated with cheap fillers to increase its weight, including dust and chilli stalks.

  Tests conducted by Indian food safety officials on 650 food samples revealed a number of illegal and dangerous colourants in foods, including amaranth in beef chilli and Sudan I, II and IV in locally produced chilli powders.

  🍏Case study: Paprika adulteration 🍏

• Turmeric - adulteration with lead chromate.

  Turmeric is prized for its bright yellow colour and has a long history of adulteration with the toxic textile dye lead chromate. A 2024 paper describes testing of 356 samples of dried turmeric root and turmeric powder, which found 14% contained more than 2 μg/g of lead.

  Samples from three regions contained more than 1000 μg/g of lead. Samples with lead levels of 18 μg/g or more had molar ratios of lead to chromium of close to 1:1, suggestive of lead chromate adulteration.

• Cinnamon – adulteration, substitution and dilution.

  Ceylon cinnamon (true cinnamon) was found to be substituted with or diluted with cassia cinnamon at rates of 9% of samples (n = 44) in a survey conducted by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). This and other problems affected 66% of all cinnamon samples in the survey (n = 104).

  In addition to false claims about Ceylon cinnamon, other problems noted in that survey included quality issues, safety non-compliances and too-high concentrations of coumarin. Cinnamon adulterated with lead chromate caused a food safety scandal when it was used in millions of units of apple puree baby food in the United States in 2023. 🍏Read a case study of the scandal here 🍏

Standards

Purity and safety standards for herbs and spices are set at a national level and are often modelled on the standards codified by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), a joint FAO/WHO initiative that provides benchmarks for the quality, purity and safety of foods.

The Codex guidelines help ensure safe international trade by addressing purity, moisture, heavy metals, pesticides and microbial limits.

Country-specific regulations for spices typically align with or exceed Codex standards.

Testing

Authenticity testing of spices can be targeted to specific adulterants, such as identifying specific illegal dyes in chilli powders and paprika, or testing for the presence of starch or maltodextrin fillers.

Non-destructive spectroscopy tools – such as near-infrared (NIR), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), and Raman spectroscopy – can be used for untargeted tests by comparing the spectroscopic signatures of a sample to statistical models of authentic samples, offering fast screening to flag suspicious materials.

DNA-based techniques provide precise confirmation of plant-based adulterants and substitutes, while visual microscopy can be used for identifying plant pieces in samples such as dried oregano and saffron.

Stable isotope ratio analysis (SIRA) examines carbon, nitrogen, or hydrogen ratios in samples to verify geographic origin, as cheaper substitutes often differ isotopically from authentic sources like premium saffron.

Chromatographic techniques, including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), target specific markers such as oleuropein in olive leaf adulterants or Sudan dyes in chilli, providing precise quantitative results.

Takeaways for food professionals

🍏 Spices are included in the top ten most fraud-affected food commodities year after year.

🍏 They are vulnerable because they are expensive, valued for characteristics like colour that can be fraudulently ‘improved’, often sold in powdered form and with complex supply chains containing many access points for unscrupulous activities.

🍏 Food fraud in spices can take the form of adulteration with undeclared and unapproved colourants, including carcinogenic Sudan dyes and heavy metal salts such as lead chromate, posing serious food safety risks.

🍏 If your company purchases powdered spices, heavy metal specification limits and analyses are recommended.

Main sources (others are hyperlinked inline):

A. Maquet, A. Lievens, V. Paracchini, G. Kaklamanos, B. de la Calle, L. Garlant, S. Papoci, D. Pietretti, T. Zdiniakova, A. Breidbach, J. Omar Onaindia, A. Boix Sanfeliu, T. Dimitrova, F. Ulberth, Results of an EU wide Coordinated Control Plan to establish the prevalence of fraudulent practices in the marketing of herbs and spices, EUR30877EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2021, ISBN 978-92-79-42979-1, doi:10.2760/309557, JRC126785

Milmo, C (2022) ‘Criminals leave a bitter taste for UK cooks by targeting £17bn herbs and spices market with fakes’, Bia Analytical, 15 August.

Michin, J (2022) ‘€3 million saffron fraud scheme uncovered by Spanish police’, New Food, 1 April.

National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) & the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit (SFCIU) (2024) Food Crime: Strategic Assessment 2024. https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/FSA-Food%20Crime%20Strategy%202024.pdf

This article first appeared in Issue 237 of The Rotten Apple

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Contents

1. BRCGS Global Standard FOOD SAFETY (Issue 9)

2. FSSC 22000 Scheme – Food Safety Management System Certification (Version 6)

3. IFS Food Standard (Version 8)

4. SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing (Edition 9)

5. SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing (Edition 10)

Version control: This page was reviewed for accuracy on 14 January 2026

1. BRCGS Global Standard FOOD SAFETY (Issue 9)

This BRCGS Standard sets out the requirements for the auditing and certification of food manufacturers in order for them to achieve certification for the Global Standard Food Safety. The current version is Issue 9, with Issue 10 expected in mid-2026.

BRCGS Global Standard FOOD SAFETY (Issue 9)

6.55MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download a copy of the BRCGS Standard by clicking the green 'download' button [180 pp].

Download

Erratum for BRCGS Global Standard FOOD SAFETY (Issue 9)

82.9KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download this erratum for the BRCGS standard by clicking the green 'download' button [1 page].

Download

Or get it straight from the source at https://www.brcgs.com/our-standards/food-safety/.

2. FSSC 22000 Scheme – Food Safety Management System Certification (Version 6)

The FSSC 22000 certification scheme outlines the requirements for audit and certification of food safety management systems of organisations in the food supply chain. The current version is Version 6, with Version 7 expected in 2026.

FSSC 22000 – Food Safety Management System Cerfication (Version 6)

895KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download the FSSC 22000 Standard by clicking on the green 'download' button [78 pp].

Download

Or get it straight from the source at https://www.fssc.com/fssc-22000/documents/version-6-documents/.

3. IFS Food Standard (Version 8)

This is the IFS Food Standard for auditing product and process compliance in relation to food safety and quality. The current version is Version 8.

IFS Food Standard (Version 8)

893KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download the IFS Food Standard by clicking the green 'download' button [150 pp].

Download

Or get it straight from the source at https://www.ifs-certification.com/en/ifs-portfolio/standards/food-standard.

4. SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing (Edition 9)

The SQF Food Safety Code sets out the implementation, maintenance and technical requirements for sites involved in the manufacture, processing, packaging, storage and transport of all types of food, including plant-based products, mixed animal and plant-based products, and ambient stable products.

SQF is currently in transition. Edition 10 has been released. Enforcement is expected to start on January 2, 2027, with audits scheduled on or after that date expected to be to Edition 10.

SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing (Edition 9)

1.51MB ∙ PDF file

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Download this copy of the SQF Food Safety Code by clicking the green 'download' button [108 pp].

Download

Or get it straight from the source at https://www.sqfi.com/the-sqf-code/choose-your-code/library-of-codes/food-manufacturing.

5. SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing (Edition 10)

Edition 10 is the current version of the SQF Food Manufacturing Code.

Edition 10 can be accessed using SQFI’s Code Selector through the SQF Library of Codes on the SQFI website, where you can view the Code and generate a printable PDF.

SQF Library of Food Safety Codes (open access)

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Industrial chemicals served as milk

In Alaska, students were accidentally served floor sealant instead of milk after containers of construction chemicals were added to a shipment of packages of shelf-stable milk. Twelve students and two adults drank the sealant after it was served by canteen staff. They were sickened but recovered.

Read more

Human AIDs medications used as growth promoters for farm animals

In 2022, I shared the mind-boggling story of how some farmers in sub-Saharan Africa were feeding human AIDS medicines to their pigs and chickens. The medicines are cheap to obtain through government medical programs and help animals to grow faster and larger as well as protecting them from diseases like African Swine Fever and Newcastle Disease.

Residues of human anti-viral medicines have been found in pork and chicken meat and in commercial animal feeds in Uganda, in at least two separate peer-reviewed studies. In one study, almost one-third of pork samples were affected.

Get source(s)

Tick-borne brain virus spread by food

A virus that causes encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and that is usually only transmitted by tick bites caused a food-borne illness outbreak that sickened 43 people in France in 2020.

Investigators found that the virus had been transferred to goats by ticks while they were grazing outdoors. The viral particles were secreted in goat’s milk that was used to make unpasteurised goat’s cheese. This raw cheese was the source of the outbreak.

Get source(s)

Baby rats in chickpeas

A UK food manufacturer hand-sorts chickpeas 24/7 to prevent buoyant, pale-coloured baby rats from ending up in products, because optical sorting can't reliably detect them due to colour variability and because they float like chickpeas.

Read more

Offenders film themselves in food tampering incidents and are caught by police

In January 2025, a man pleaded guilty after police found videos on his phone showing him ejaculating onto and touching food with his penis. The foods included strawberries, donuts, cupcakes and pastry frosting, some of which had been ordered for a child’s birthday party.

In a separate incident, another man posted footage online of himself in a Walmart store spraying insecticide on foods, including fresh produce and rotisserie chickens. He admitted to the crimes when contacted by police.

Get sources

Bizarre toxic growth hack for bean sprouts

In 2024, authorities in Vietnam discovered more than 20 tons of bean sprouts (likely mung bean) soaked in 6-benzylaminopurine during an inspection of six production facilities where industrial quantities of bean sprouts are produced at a rate of more than 8 tons per day.

The chemical is not allowed to be used in food processing and poses risks to foetuses, including low birth weight, hydrocephalus and congenital malformations. It’s used illegally to speed growth, reduce root size and improve the appearance of bean sprouts.

‘Syrup water’ containing the chemical was also seized. One trader told authorities that the whole bean sprout market is “not clean” – implying that all bean sprout producers in that region use the substance.

Get source(s)

Rats running across the crust of old juice concentrate in hidden vats

A fruit juice company and its owner pleaded guilty to food fraud-related offences and admitted to selling grape juice concentrate which was a blend containing new and old concentrate from past years’ production to customers as new product.

The old concentrate had been stored in large concrete vats that were not properly covered or cooled. The vats had initially been hidden from FDA inspectors.

FDA inspectors photographed a live rat in a vat, walking over the top of a crust on the juice concentrate. The concentrate contained the remains of decaying animals, faeces from birds and rodents, insects, mould and yeast. The company sold the grape juice concentrate blends to customers who provided grape juice for a school lunch program in the United States.

Get source(s)

Secret factory making fake sugar

Authorities discovered a clandestine manufacturing operation in Côte d’Ivoire in 2024 that was making fake sugar. The product was crystalline with a fine powder form and a reddish colour and was being sold in one kilogram bags labelled “sugar”. It’s alleged to have been made with milk powder, pellets and a “reddish dye”.

Get source(s)

Fake garlic made from cement

After the price of garlic surged in India in 2024, consumers took to social media to report they had been duped into buying fake garlic made from cement.

Get source(s)

Weird food recall: betel nuts in mouth freshener

Betel nuts, chewed in parts of Asia and the Pacific, for their mild stimulant effects, and perceived benefits of increased alertness and appetite suppression, are hard, oval-shaped seeds from the areca palm with an astringent, woody taste.

Mouth freshener was recalled in Denmark in 2024 because it contained betel nuts, which is a non-authorised novel food in Europe.

Get source(s)

Unusual food safety incident: gastrointestinal anthrax

In early May 2025, there was an anthrax scare in Thailand after a 53-year-old man died from gastrointestinal anthrax, with three additional suspected cases in the same region. At least 638 people were potentially exposed to anthrax after butchering livestock and eating raw or undercooked beef.

Authorities set up a 5-kilometre quarantine zone around the infection site, commenced a cattle vaccination program and gave antibiotics to all people who may have been in contact with the infected meat.

Gastrointestinal anthrax develops when a person eats undercooked or raw meat from an animal infected with Bacillus anthracis spores. Once ingested, the spores germinate in the gastrointestinal tract, growing and releasing potent toxins which cause the intestines to ulcerate and bleed. This can lead to severe nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, bloody diarrhoea, and, if untreated, rapid progression to septicemia and death.

Gastrointestinal anthrax is uncommon in industrialised countries. Outbreaks typically occur in regions where livestock vaccination is lacking. The disease is not transmitted person-to-person.

See the story snippet in this week’s food safety news.

Stealthy food bacteria linked to Alzheimer’s disease

The bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which causes stomach ulcers, has been found in foods and can survive well in low-acid, high-moisture foods stored at refrigerator temperatures. Unhygienic food handling environments and areas with poor sanitation are linked to populations with a higher prevalence of H. pylori infections.

In 2018, researchers writing about H. pylori in the World Journal of Gastroenterology proposed that it be considered a foodborne pathogen.

In 2023 H. pylori was the subject of an extensive study which examined its role in the presence of the neurodegenerative disorder Alzheimer’s disease.

In a large case-controlled study, which drew on data from more than 4 million people, and followed observational studies linking H. pylori infections with Alzheimer’s, people with symptomatic H. pylori infection were shown to be 11% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than matched control groups.

Foodborne pathogens and Alzheimer’s, that was unexpected!

Read more

Cooks dose 1,600 servings of restaurant food with hidden antibiotics

In 2024, two Chinese men were given suspended prison sentences for adding undeclared antibiotics to food they were preparing in a restaurant.

They told the court they put the drugs into the food because the food was “rather unhygienic” and they wanted to prevent diners from getting diarrhoea.

Each dish of cold appetisers was dosed with 2 mL of gentamicin sulphate, an antibiotic which was a common treatment for diarrhoea in China in past decades.

The two men admitted to treating more than 1,600 dishes this way, over the course of a year. The men were also fined, banned from working in the food industry for life and ordered to make a public apology, while the restaurant where they worked was also fined and had its business license revoked.

The crimes were discovered after a tip-off by another employee. Officials found 101 unused boxes and 4 empty boxes of gentamicin sulphate at the restaurant when they arrived to investigate the tip-off.

Get source(s)

Hot (deadly hot) tortilla chips

In 2023, European countries suspended sales of tortilla chips with ‘extreme spiciness’, saying the high levels of capsaicinoids in the chips posed a danger to human health. This followed the death of a child in the United States who had eaten a single extra-spicy tortilla chip, despite the chips being clearly labelled as being suitable only for adults.

Adverse reactions to consuming foods high in capsaicinoids include nausea, vomiting, high blood pressure, burning eyes, and irritation of mucous membranes.

Source: 2023 Annual Report - Alert and Cooperation Network

🎧 Listen 🎧

Hi!

Welcome to Issue 245 of The Rotten Apple, where I celebrate more insights from the best minds in food fraud prevention and high-five the government of Canada for its exemplary work on the subject.

Also this week, I list the top 5 non-conformities in the latest audit stats and share two hidden gems I discovered in the process.

Finally, three quick food safety bites, plus the final word on pink pineapples.

Before we jump in, just a reminder that subscription fees increase this week, but only for people who sign up after June 30. Current subscribers keep the current price forever.

Being a paid subscriber means getting access to high-quality food safety resources and weekly food fraud reports. And supporting my mission to help you stay up to date without the boring bits.

Thank you!

Karen

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Food fraud’s frontier: unexpected insights

Part II

In last week’s issue, I shared a link to Part I of Insights From the Front Line of Food Fraud, as seen and heard at the Authentic Food Conference (EFF-CoP, 2026) in Dublin last month.

This week: Part II, which includes a fascinating peek into the neuroscience of dishonesty, tips on how to be a successful fraudster and insights from an anti-corruption consultant.

Click here to access Part I and Part II: From the frontlines: What the sharpest minds in food fraud are focused on right now

Top 5 food safety non-conformances

Plus 2 hidden gems from BRCGS

The food safety scheme owner BRCGS published its annual report last week.

I always get really excited when these reports come out because the non-conformance (NC) data provides a window into what food safety auditors and food safety specialists are thinking about right now when it comes to compliance with voluntary standards. This years’ BRCGS report is no exception.

There is a definite pattern in the results, in that the top 5 non-conformances in food safety audits are all related to on-site activities rather than paperwork.

This could be due to an intentional focus or unintentional bias of BRCGS auditors, or it could be a genuine snapshot of where food companies are going wrong with their food safety compliance – it’s impossible to say from the data alone.

Here are the results.

1. Cleanliness: The top NC was against clause 4.11.1 “The premises and equipment shall be maintained in a clean and hygienic condition”.

2. Hygienic design of equipment: The second most common NC was also hygiene-related, specifically for not having hygienically designed equipment (clause 4.6.2 “The design and construction of equipment shall be based on risk, to prevent product contamination”). Last year, these two clauses accounted for almost half of all NCs.

3. Chemical handling system deficiencies were the third most prevalent NC (clause 4.9.1.1), followed by

4. Walls - the condition of walls (clause 4.4.1) and

5. Doors - maintenance and condition of internal and external doors (clause 4.4.8).

The ‘worst’ clauses in this year’s report are the same as those reported in last year’s report - only the order of the fourth- and fifth-ranked clauses has switched - and they are similar to those from other recent years. For example, hygiene, maintenance, doors, chemical controls and walls were top in 2022.

Other gems from the report…

Anonymous reporting mechanism

BRCGS has a confidential reporting system for reporting concerns about wrongdoings on BRCGS-certified sites and issues with certification bodies and auditors. The system has been active since 2020 and receives hundreds of reports related to sites, auditors and certification bodies per year.

Access it here: TellBRCGS

Supplier verification system

BRCGS also has a dedicated supplier verification system that provides live certification visibility, alerts and reporting for businesses that wish to monitor BRCGS-certified suppliers. Called Directory Pro, it was launched in October 2025. The system helps to reduce certificate fraud by giving purchasers a verified, up‑to‑date source of certification information for due‑diligence checks.

Learn more here: BRCGS DirectoryPro

3 Quick Food Safety Bites

1. Infant formula botulism update: German formula maker used the same supplier (wow)

Last week I shared the horrifying news that more babies had contracted botulism from infant formula, but that this time the product was made in Germany.

It was hard to see the link. I was sceptical that a German company would source milk powder from the United States. And, as usual, the United States authorities were not revealing sources or suppliers.

But now we know.

Nara Organics products are made in Germany, but the company began using whole milk from Organic West and Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) when it first started producing formula, as it searched for an EU-based supplier. During that time, Organic West supplied the fluid milk, and DFA’s plant in Nevada turned the milk into powder, Nara Organics told Helena Bottemiller Evich of Food Fix.

Organic West and Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) supplied ByHeart, the infant formula brand linked to the 2025 botulism outbreak.

Nara Organics products are linked to the most recently reported cases of infant botulism and are currently being recalled.

2. Food safety misinformation on TikTok

In a paper published in the latest edition of Food Protection Trends, researchers from Toronto Metropolitan University describe not just the proportion of TikTok videos that have poor food safety practices, but also the alarming finding that the ‘bad’ ones are more likely to be saved by viewers.

On TikTok, the videos that get saved most often tend to be “how-to” content that people intend to return to and act upon. That is, videos with food safety misinformation are more likely to be re-viewed and used as a source of instructions, not just passively viewed once.

The researchers focused on two food safety practices: produce washing and checking the cooking doneness of ground meat and small cuts of meat and poultry, such as steaks and pieces of chicken, analysing 100 TikTok videos to see whether the food safety information provided by the video creators matched government guidance.

Seventy-six of the one hundred videos in the study dataset contained information that didn’t align with government food safety guidance — a 76% non-compliance rate.

Food industry professionals (chefs, butchers, farmers, food scientists, etc.) were significantly more likely to follow guidance than general creators: 42% vs 16%.

For produce washing, roughly three-quarters of videos recommended chemicals, most commonly vinegar (47%) and baking soda (40%), despite guidance saying plain water is sufficient and chemically equivalent for microbial reduction.

For cooking doneness, only 24% recommended a thermometer as the primary method of determining doneness. Most videos suggested the use of meat colour, texture, or cooking time, methods which do not reliably indicate safe internal temperatures.

Perhaps most alarmingly, videos with higher save counts were more likely to contain non-compliant information, and this was statistically significant.

3. Free risk assessment resource

FDA-iRISK is a free tool that can be used for predictive modelling of microorganisms, such as growth and inactivation, so that the impact of interventions can be measured.

• Provides a model framework, built-in functions, and data-entry templates

• Enables users to enter data and build scenarios

• Directly connects data on probability and consequence through specification of a Risk Scenario (a risk assessment model) specific to food-hazard combinations.

It also includes chemical hazards and can be used for chronic chemical exposure risk assessments by calculating the lifetime average daily dose (LADD) distribution.

It is used by people who are knowledgeable about the hazards, foods and processes they are describing, but not necessarily familiar with risk assessment methodology and experienced risk assessors who wish to develop risk assessments more quickly.

Learn more and see a live demonstration in this webinar:

Pink pineapples — the final word

I may have got a little ‘in the weeds’ with the regulatory status of Del Monte’s genetically modified PinkGlow pineapples in the past two weeks 😊, aided and abetted by reader Theo of EUginius, the European GMO database. Mysteriously, it seemed the pineapples were approved for eating but perhaps not for growing.

The final word comes from Theo, who wrote to tell me that the Biosafety Clearing House (BCH) has a listing for the GMO pineapple and a record of its authorisation for planting and production in Costa Rica. Mystery solved!

Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

This week’s food fraud news is dedicated to the Canadian government’s annual food fraud report

I know most of you aren’t from Canada, but I’m diving into it for two reasons:

1) Because the situation in Canada is likely to be similar to the one in your country, particularly for commodities that are imported. Many of the non-compliant samples described in the report were imported, and some are likely from the same sources as similar foods in your country.

2) Secondly, the activities described in the report, and the report itself, represent best practice for government food authorities when it comes to food fraud prevention, awareness, detection and enforcement.

I’ll start with the best practices described in the report, then dive into the analytical results.

Read more

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In this week’s episode:

• Insights from the frontline of food fraud (Part II)

• Top 5 NCs to watch out for in 2027

• 3 quick food safety bites, plus the last word on pink pineapples

• Food fraud report (deep dive)

🍏 For a transcript and sources, see Issue 245 🍏

Subscribe to The Rotten Apple

In this week’s episode:

• Food fraud’s frontier: unexpected insights from the Authentic Food Conference

• What’s new in SQF 10

• 3 food safety bites

• Pink pineapples, part II

🍏 For a transcript and sources, see Issue 244 🍏

Subscribe to The Rotten Apple

• Food fraud’s frontier: unexpected insights from the Authentic Food Conference

• What’s new in SQF 10

• 3 food safety bites

• Pink pineapples, part II

• Food fraud news, emerging threats and incident reports

🎧 Listen 🎧

Happy Monday!

Readers often ask me if it’s hard to find things to write about each week. It isn’t. In fact, one of the toughest tasks is deciding what to leave out.

Last week I left out a call-back on pink pineapples (I'm playing catch-up on it in this issue). This week I had to cut my article on food fraud insights into two parts because it was getting too long.

And since I couldn’t decide whether you’d rather hear about a new baby botulism scare, BRCGS’ new position statements or an unusual shrimp recall, I found a way to squeeze them all in.

Also this week: plenty of food fraud news, with incidents from Asia and South Africa dominating the list.

Thanks for being here,

Karen

Learn about paid subscriptins

Cover image: generated

Food fraud’s frontier: unexpected insights

The Authentic Food Conference (EFF-CoP, 2026) in Dublin drew together many of the thought leaders in food fraud prevention and food integrity from around the globe. I was there, as both an enthusiastic listener and presenter.

In this month’s supplement for paying subscribers, I’m sharing my notes from the conference over two weekly instalments.

You’ll find new insights into familiar incidents, expert insights from food-fraud-adjacent fields, and two easily overlooked elements of food fraud prevention that kept coming up across the two-day event.

• Part I: New insights, challenges and solutions from across the supply chain, plus 6 unexpected food fraud facts.

• Part II (published 29 June 2026): The neuroscience of dishonesty, how to be a successful fraudster, insights from an anti-corruption consultant.

Click the preview below for an insider’s view.

What’s new in SQF 10

The owners of the popular SQF food safety standard, the SQF Institute, have released the latest version of the SQF Code, Edition 10.

It will be used for audits on or after January 2027, depending on a successful GFSI benchmarking review.

The new code has major new elements related to food safety culture, change management and risk-based environmental monitoring, plus changes to audit scoring processes and a formatting change to support digital (rather than print-based) usage.

New Requirements

Food Safety Culture: Mandatory comprehensive Food Safety Culture Plan with measurable objectives, performance measures, communication channels, feedback mechanisms (e.g., anonymous reporting), and leadership commitment.

Change Management: New dedicated clause requiring documented procedures for managing changes to equipment, processes, personnel, suppliers, or materials — risks must be evaluated before implementation.

Environmental Monitoring: Risk-based environmental monitoring program is now mandatory; requires formal assessment to determine scope, frequency, and pathogens tailored to operational risks.

Updates and refinements

• Enhanced root cause analysis expectations with identification of methods used.

• Stronger training assessments — rigorous competency evaluations for critical training programs.

• Enhanced recall testing requirements.

• Consolidation: requirements for record-keeping, training, and CAPA clauses reorganised into separate sections.

• Changes to product sector classifications (FSC): Honey added to FSC 18; all plant-based foods under FSC 14; FSC 19 renamed “Food Additive Manufacturing”.

• Food fraud: improved wording for food fraud clauses (no changes to requirements).

The SQFI has published a webinar that explains the key operational and technical changes of Edition 10.

Watch now: SQF Edition 10. Business Value Now. Audit Readiness For 2027.

3 Quick Food Safety Bites

1. New baby botulism outbreak (arp!)

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating a second multistate outbreak of infant botulism linked to powdered infant formula. This outbreak, linked to Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Formula, follows an earlier, separate outbreak in late 2025 involving ByHeart brand formula. At least three infants have been hospitalised, and a recall of Nara products is underway in the United States.

• ByHeart: Botulism outbreak was flagged in late 2025. Traced to contaminated dry whole milk powder supplied by a Californian organic milk supplier and processed by Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) in Nevada.

• Nara Organics: Recall began in mid-June 2026 after infants in the United States became ill. Manufactured in Germany using milk powder from a German supplier.

Outbreak Investigation of Infant Botulism: Powdered Infant Formula (June 2026) | FDA

2. BRCGS position statements

The BRCGS, which owns food and consumer goods supply chain certification schemes including the popular BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety, has issued new Position Statements for four of its standards.

• They are auditable: Position Statements are considered a formal extension of the standard and are audited against from their effective date.

• Why they are issued: Position Statements are used as interim updates. They are issued by the BRCGS Technical Advisory Committee to patch gaps in standards, clarify confusing clauses, or update audit rules (such as how to handle unannounced audits) without waiting to publish a new version of the standard.

The new position statements are:

• F926 Food Safety

• P708 Packaging Materials

• ​​SD404 Storage & Distribution

• AB310 Agents & Brokers

They apply to audits from 10 August 2026.
BRCGS Position Statements | BRCGS

3. Unusual shrimp recall

Cooked scampi shrimp have been recalled in Australia due to contamination with nitrofurazone (SEM).

Nitrofurazone is a synthetic antimicrobial compound historically used as a growth promoter and antibiotic in food-producing animals. It is now banned globally (including in Australia, the US, and the EU) for use in food-producing animals due to its carcinogenic and mutagenic properties.

The recall is unusual because the laboratory tests used to detect nitrofurazone look for a specific metabolic marker (semicarbazide, SEM) that can be present in shrimp exoskeletons for reasons not necessarily associated with its illegal use in farmed shrimp, leading to false positives and making a retail-level recall rare.

UPDATED 17.06.26 | ASO United Pty Ltd - Cooked Scampi Shrimp Head-On Shell-On - 1kg | Food Standards Australia New Zealand

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No filters needed: Pineapples get their glow on

Following last week’s just-for-fun note about illegal red-skinned pineapples, reader Theo Prins, of EUginius, the European GMO database, wrote to remind me about the PinkGlow pineapple – one of the few genetically modified fruits that have been approved for eating.

The German BVL and the Dutch WFSR operate the EUginius database of GMOs to help government agencies and private users find accurate information about genetically modified organisms (www.euginius.eu).

The PinkGlow pineapple is a true GMO, an organism that has had its genome altered using biotechnological techniques, whereas the RubyGlow, the pineapple with the red-coloured skin in last week’s issue, was developed using traditional plant breeding techniques.

Curiously, Theo noticed that, according to the ISAAA (an agricultural biotechnology knowledge-sharing network), the PinkGlow, which is allowed for food consumption in Canada and the USA, is not authorised for cultivation anywhere in the world. And he asks “So how can you eat this PinkGlow when you cannot cultivate it anywhere in the world? 😉”

I got curious too and tried to find out. It seems PinkGlow is only grown in Costa Rica by the fruit company Del Monte, which tightly controls access. A newspaper article from 2023 says the Costa Rican Ministry of Agriculture authorised Del Monte to develop the variety, though I’m not sure exactly how that extends to commercial cultivation or why the authorisation isn’t mentioned in the ISAAA list.

I wrote about PinkGlow pineapples in Issue 35, way back in 2022:

This new variety of pink pineapple looks like it was bred just for Instagram. It’s a pretty pink colour, so you don’t need to add an Insta image filter to make the fruit look fabulous. Whole fruits are available in the USA for $30 to $50 each. That’s right, $50 for a pineapple.

If you’re American (except Hawaiians, sorry Hawaiians!) you can now go online and purchase a $50 pineapple with pink flesh that will be delivered straight to your door. Lucky you.

Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

In this week’s food fraud news

📌 New vulnerabilities for honey?
📌 Seafood labelling rules for restaurants
📌 Quantum physics in food fraud
📌 Incidents with yoghurt, halal certification, goose meat and more

🐟New country of origin labelling rules for seafood in restaurants (Australia)

Restaurants and other catering businesses such as takeaway outlets and hotels, in Australia, will be required to declare the origin of seafood items on their menus from July 2026, stating whether the seafood is Australian, imported or a mix of both.

Businesses can use single-letter codes (A, I or M) or full text declarations (e.g., “Contains imported seafood”) to denote origin.

Dishes not marketed as seafood, such as a supreme pizza that contains anchovies; liquid and powder forms of seafood such as fish sauce; and shelf-stable seafood such as canned tuna or bonito flakes, are exempt.

Learn more: https://business.gov.au/products-and-services/product-labelling/seafood-labelling-laws-are-changing-for-hospitality-businesses

Read more

In 2025, the UK government commissioned work to define and describe regenerative agricultural practices, saying they are poorly understood and “social and economic aspects of regenerative agriculture remain uncertain.”

In this article, I share what you need to know about it.

What is regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture was a hot topic a few years ago, as large companies such as General Mills and McDonalds started issuing press releases about their commitments to sustainability through the lens of regenerative ag.

Regenerative agriculture is the practice of farming crops and animals in a way that restores soils that have been degraded by past agricultural practices. Strategies such as adaptive grazing, no-till planting and careful selection of fertilisers are often mentioned in the context of regenerative agriculture.

• Adaptive grazing is the management of livestock grazing patterns based on environmental conditions and plant recovery needs. High-density, short-duration grazing is interspersed with pasture rest periods with the aim of improving soil health, biodiversity, and overall ecosystem function.

• With no-till planting, crops are sown directly into undisturbed soil without tilling, with the aim of preserving soil structure and organic matter, reducing erosion, increasing water retention, and supporting beneficial soil microorganisms.

• In regenerative agriculture, fertiliser selection strategies include minimising synthetic inputs, using soil tests to determine precise needs to reduce overdosing, and prioritising natural and organic inputs.

Is regenerative ag just about soil health?

Depends on who you ask.

The World Economic Forum says, “Regenerative agriculture focuses on improving the health of soil, which has been degraded by the use of heavy machinery, fertilizers and pesticides in intensive farming”.

However, General Mills includes social and economic elements in their definition of regenerative agriculture, saying “It’s a holistic, principles-based approach to farming and ranching that delivers positive environmental, social and economic outcomes.”

Certification scheme owner Regenerative Organic Alliance says regenerative agriculture should also include elements of animal welfare and farmworker fairness while a different scheme (AGW) says regenerative certified operations must be managed in a socially responsible way.

Newton et. al (2020) reviewed 229 journal articles and 25 practitioner websites to characterise the term “regenerative agriculture” and concluded that there were so many different understandings of the term that individual users should define it for their own purposes and contexts.

Does regenerative agriculture work?

It depends on what its aims are, the initial state of the land where it is practised and the methods used to achieve regeneration.

Regenerative agriculture practices can increase carbon sequestration in soils, and improve crop yields according to research published by the West Australian government but it’s harder to unravel the outcomes with respect to social, economic and animal welfare due to a lack of published comparable data. In addition, results from individual studies are highly dependent on the initial state of the land.

Soil sequestration of carbon appears to be the most well-researched area of regenerative agriculture, with one study (Poeplau & Don (2015)) showing that the use of cover crops can increase the amount of carbon in soil without decreasing yields and providing benefits that remain for up to 155 years.

Soil health and biodiversity appear to benefit from regenerative practices, at least in some soil types and climates (Khangura et. al., 2023; Lambert et. al., 2023). Animal welfare improvements may occur from regenerative agriculture due to an improvement in animal health but evidence is lacking.

Whether there are direct financial benefits from regenerative agriculture is context-dependent, with large yield increases reported in sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, the lower production costs of no-till methods can provide financial benefits, even if yields are not improved, says the United States Department of Agriculture in a 2025 report.

Takeaways for food professionals

There is no universally accepted definition of regenerative agriculture.

Therefore, if your company wants to use claims about regenerative agriculture for products or ingredients, be sure to include your own context-specific definition, to avoid misleading consumers.

There is evidence that regenerative agriculture can provide better outcomes for the environment and for farmers than standard agricultural practices, however the results are context-dependent.

Sources

Newton, P., Civita, N., Frankel-Goldwater, L., Bartel, K. and Johns, C. (2020). What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, [online] 4(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2020.577723.

Other sources are cited inline using hyperlinks.

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• Case study: high-energy diversions and millions of counterfeit products land criminals in jail

• PAS 96:2026 unpacked for you

• Food safety news

• Illegal pineapples

• Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents

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Hello, lovely readers,

Welcome to everyone who signed up recently. And a special shoutout to 👏👏Sundeep from the USA, Sam the chocolate expert from the UK, RA from Canada, Malika the seafood expert from Canada, Adam and DH 👏👏. Your subscriptions help keep this publication independent and ad-free. Thank you.

In this week’s issue: the most ‘official’, government-endorsed food defence guidance in the (non-US, English-speaking) world has just been updated. It’s PAS 96 and food safety thought leaders are frothing about it.

I explore what it is, why everyone’s so excited about the new version, and help you decide if the updates actually change anything for you.

Also this week: another fascinating story in our series of food fraud case studies, and pink pineapples plus food fraud news for paying subscribers.

Enjoy!

P.S. Subscription fees increase on 30 June. Current subscribers are unaffected and will retain access to the current price. Upgrade today to lock in the existing price forever!

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Case study: The first U.S. criminal prosecution for counterfeit food

5-Hour Energy

It took more than four years, but the beverage brand 5-Hour Energy, victim of a massive, multi-year counterfeiting operation, finally got justice, winning $20 million in civil action against more than 70 defendants and seeing the counterfeiters convicted and given jail terms in a criminal case that was the first prosecution of its kind in the United States.

So what did the counterfeiting operation look like and how was it successfully prosecuted?

This case study examines a food fraud operation that snowballed into a complex counterfeiting operation crossing international borders.

The frauds

The story begins in 2011, with 5-Hour Energy dominating the new category of ‘energy shots’ - beverages containing functional ingredients, sold in small packages and marketed as a fast, no‑sugar pick‑me‑up for office workers, drivers and older adults who wanted alertness without drinking a full energy drink.

At the time, U.S. energy‑shot sales were around $1 billion, with 5‑Hour Energy holding roughly 90% of market share, with its competitors scrambling to keep up.

The makers of 5-Hour Energy, Living Essentials, manufactured the products in Wabash, Indiana and sold them directly to retail outlets and through independent brokers across the U.S.

For the Mexican market, Living Essentials had partnered with Baja Exporting LLC, selling Spanish-language labelled versions of 5-Hour Energy to Baja Exporting LLC at a significantly lower price than the one paid by distributors in the U.S.

In 2011, contrary to their agreement with Living Essentials, the owners of Baja Exporting began selling 5-Hour Energy intended for Mexico into markets in the United States.

They also began swapping the Spanish-language labels on the genuine Mexican product for unauthorised English-language labels, ultimately selling more than 350,000 bottles during this stage of their unlawful operation.

So to begin with, the product they were selling was genuine 5-Hour Energy, but the labels were unauthorised copies of genuine English-language labels. And the distribution area was not authorised by the brand owner.

The counterfeit activity did not stop there, however.

When their stocks of legitimate product ran out, the owners of Baja Exporting and their associates began producing completely fake versions of the product, sourcing counterfeit display boxes, bottles and caps and filling them with beverages that had been brewed, labelled and packaged in California at a rate of 75,000 bottles per day.

The counterfeiters even changed the lot codes and expiry dates on the counterfeit products to match codes found on authentic products.

Detection

In 2012, one of Living Essentials’ U.S. sales agents noticed that a retail outlet that had previously been a major purchaser of 5-Hour Energy was continuing to stock the product despite no longer ordering it from them.

An initial review by the company revealed the caps on this mystery stock did not have the distinctive raised ‘pimple’ found on authentic 5-Hour Energy caps. The logo on the caps was also slightly different.

Subsequent inspections by private investigators working for Living Essentials ultimately resulted in the seizing of more than 2.6 million bottles of 5-Hour Energy from the market.

Outcome

In 2012, Living Essentials initiated action against dozens of defendants that were allegedly selling counterfeit versions of their products.

After further investigations into the source of the counterfeits, they filed another action, which included the owners of Baja Exporting LLC and co-conspirators, including the man responsible for supplying the counterfeit packaging.

Meanwhile, the FBI and the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations were also pursuing the counterfeiters, with 11 defendants ultimately facing criminal charges that included conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy to introduce misbranded food into interstate commerce.

In 2016, Living Essentials won its civil action against the counterfeiters and their co-conspirators, with the court awarding more than $20 million in damages. The criminal cases ended with multiple convictions and significant prison sentences for key members of the counterfeiting network, with several co‑defendants pleading guilty to related charges.

5‑Hour Energy continues to thrive as a brand. Its packages are equipped with overt and covert anti‑counterfeit elements to assist in the prevention and detection of counterfeiting. Examples of anti-counterfeit features include microtext, invisible inks, unique codes, and subtle design elements that are hard to replicate accurately.

Insights for food professionals

• Counterfeiting often affects category leaders, because strong brand recognition makes the counterfeits easier to sell. (Products in wealthy countries are not immune!)

• Different types of fraud often coexist within one operation, such as in this case where diversion evolved to counterfeiting.

• Trusted supply chain partners such as distributors, exporters and brokers can cause more damage than unconnected criminals because they understand your pricing, packaging, and channel structure well enough to exploit it.

• Overt and covert security features on products make imitation more difficult and support authentication, investigations and enforcement.

• Sales and traceability data such as lot sizes and shipment information can be used to flag anomalies that could signal diversion and counterfeiting. Red flags include impossible volumes in a region and product appearing in channels without authorised distributors.

• Private investigations and civil litigation can effectively complement regulatory enforcement activities. Brand‑led investigations, coordinated with law enforcement, can accelerate seizures, inform indictments, and strengthen the position of civil actions against counterfeiters and unauthorised distributors.

Main Sources (others are hyperlinked inline):

Schnapp, DA & Frankfurther, BA (2016) ‘Counterfeiting in Our Own Backyard’, NYSBA, 34(2):21-23.

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California (2017) ‘Counterfeiters Sentenced For Convictions In Nationwide Conspiracy To Distribute Fake 5-Hour Energy Drink’.

Food protection guidance

PAS 96:2026

The most ‘official’ food protection guidance in the non-US English-speaking world has just been updated. Here’s what you need to know.

What is PAS 96 and why is everyone so excited about the updates?

PAS 96 is a guidance document developed by the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and Food Standards Agency (FSA) and published by the British Standards Institution (BSI), the UK’s national standards body and a member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Its stated aim is to “To provide guidance to food business operators to help them identify potential threats and associated vulnerabilities in their operations and supply networks.”

It was first published in 2008, and the previous version was published in 2017.

Is it a food fraud thing or a food defence thing?

It’s both. And more besides.

To quote: “The focus of this PAS is on food protection, encompassing food defence, cyber resilience of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) and food authenticity (mitigation of food fraud).”

Is it relevant beyond the United Kingdom?

Yes, the guidance in PAS 96 is applicable to food businesses everywhere.

What’s been updated?

The document has been thoroughly rewritten. It has been modernised to reflect new threats related to cybersecurity, global supply shocks, such as those caused by the COVID pandemic and the Ukraine war, climate change and increased focus on sustainability and ethical governance.

It contains real-life examples of different types of incidents, fictitious case studies demonstrating threat assessment protocols and more practical implementation guidance than previous versions

Is it useful to GFSI-certified businesses?

Yes. And no.

The document conflates food fraud risk assessments and food defence risk assessments, and this is unhelpful for businesses that operate to GFSI benchmarked standards, which require separate programs for food defence and food fraud.

However, the annexes contain comprehensive lists of questions, prompts and mitigation ideas that are well separated and which food businesses of all sizes and certifications will find useful.

How does it compare to other guidance?

PAS 96:2026 has a much broader scope than other guidance documents for food protection. For example, the United States FDA guidance on food defence (Intentional Adulteration Guidance) focuses on adulteration incidents intended to cause large-scale public health harm, while PAS 96 covers espionage, extortion, sabotage and other threats with smaller-scale impacts, as well as ideologically motivated attacks.

The cybercrime-related sections extend beyond impacts on food, food safety systems and food consumers, also addressing threats to business continuity, theft of intellectual property, impacts on financial records and the security of employee information.

It also seeks to encompass vulnerabilities related to:

• Climate change-mediated supply disruptions,

• Efforts to meet environmental, social governance (ESGs), and

• The donation of surplus edible food.

It’s unusual in its approach to combining risk assessments and horizon scanning activities for food fraud and food defence.

Do you need it?

If you’re looking to learn more about food defence or threats from cybercrime or if you are ready to make improvements to your food defence or food fraud prevention programs, you’ll find useful lists of prompts for risk assessments, lists of mitigation measures and a list of intelligence sources in the document.

If you’re seeking to raise awareness about threats to food businesses, Annex B contains descriptions of real events pertaining to many different types of threats, including extortion, espionage, malicious contamination, ideologically motivated adulteration, cyber-enabled disruptions to business, cyber-enabled frauds and food fraud events.

If you want to learn more about cybercrime techniques in a food business context, Annex C contains short descriptions of cybercrime techniques, including DDoS attacks, ransomware attacks, and cyber-enabled fraud. Worth a look.

Where to get it

PAS 96:2026 Food defence – Protection and prevention from deliberate acts (Guide) can be downloaded for free from the BSI website (contact details must be provided first).

Get PAS96:2026

Food Safety News and Resources

My food safety news and resources posts have no fluff, no filler, no ads, no junk, just expertly hand-curated food safety news from around the globe.

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Patented Pineapples: A “Beautiful Ride”

This video tells the story of how one company got “a beautiful ride” by finding a “once in a lifetime fruit” and explains why a pink pineapple sells for $400 - if you can get it at all.

Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news and incident reports

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Rapid DNA method for seafood speciation
📌 Warning for fresh berries
📌 Two unusual frauds with seafood and veg
📌 Incidents with mangoes, carrots and milk

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

Read more

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In this week’s episode:

• Case study: high-energy diversions and millions of counterfeit products land criminals in jail

• PAS 96:2026 unpacked for you

• Food safety news

• Illegal pineapples

🍏 For a transcript and sources, see Issue 243 🍏

This is the tale of four potato salads.

Each salad has had a different journey to arrive on the table.

Your job is to decide which, if any, of the salads is safe to eat now or keep for later.

How to participate

1. Review the handling history of each potato salad (below)

2. Decide the safety status of each salad, choosing from A, B or C

   1. A: safe to eat now or put back in the fridge OR

   2. B: safe to eat now but do not put back in the fridge OR

   3. C: not safe: discard immediately

   Be sure to read the hint at the end of the challenge.

3. Decide on your answers, including a brief justification for each answer.

Read more

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In this week’s episode:

• It’s World Food Safety Day (yesterday)

• Webinar archive unlocked

• Food Safety News Roundup

• What does fraud taste like?

🍏 For a transcript and sources, see Issue 242 🍏

Cover image: Generated

Subscribe to The Rotten Apple

• It’s World Food Safety Day (yesterday)

• Webinar archive unlocked

• Food Safety News Roundup

• What does fraud taste like?

• Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents.

🎧 Listen 🎧

Happy Food Safety Day!

Welcome to Issue 242 of The Rotten Apple, where we celebrate (yesterday) World Food Safety Day (7th June 2026).

To celebrate, I’m sharing some of my top food safety articles from past issues of The Rotten Apple. Including the one about the time I swallowed a big sharp thing and needed emergency surgery.

Also: what does food fraud taste like? Plus, the IAFP unlocks its members-only archive of food safety webinars for everyone for the month of June.

As always, there’s food fraud news for paying subscribers at the end of the issue, with (can you believe it?) more problems for pistachio buyers.

Enjoy!

Karen

Food Safety Top Picks

To celebrate World Food Safety Day, I’ve compiled a list of our best (and most intriguing) food safety articles, starting with a link to our ultra-popular Food Safety Resources Page, which contains a hand-curated selection of more than 287 free food safety resources.

• 287+ Free Food Safety Resources

• Top 5 food safety non-conformances

• “I nearly lost him”… This is the face of a food safety failure

• Frogs and Other Foreign Objects in Food - December 2023

• Sequelae: The Mysterious Long-term Outcomes of Foodborne Illness - January 2025

• Is Alzheimer’s a Foodborne Illness? - February 2024

• I swallowed a big sharp thing (emergency surgery from a food contaminant) - August 2024

• The Food Safety Impact of Food Fraud: What 795 Food Fraud Cases Tell Us About Real Risk

• What is a food safety risk assessment (really)? - February 2025

• Emerging Issues in Food Safety: A Review (2025)

• How to make an internal audit checklist

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… and talking of injuries from swallowing big sharp things… just last month, Global Seafood Distributors (Australia) Pty Ltd recalled 500 g packages of Seafood Marinara Mix due to “the presence of foreign matter (mussel shell fragments with product)”, with the regulator stating “food products containing shell fragments may cause illness/injury if consumed.” I can attest to that!

Thank you to reader Andrew from Australia +Taiwan for bringing this recall to my attention

Webinar archive unlocked

In honour of World Food Safety Day, the International Association of Food Protection (IAFP) has thrown open their webinar archive - a treasure trove of one-hour on-demand webinars on every food safety topic imaginable for the month of June.

The archive is usually only accessible to members of the IAFP. It includes:

• Advancing Food Safety Culture Together - A Dialogue Between Auditor and Auditee

• Hygienic Design & Monitoring Strategies to Prevent In-Process Contamination in Food and Beverage Applications

• Assess Food Safety Culture: Choosing Methods and Maximising Results

• Root Cause Analysis: Adopting Standard Practices for the Food Industry

• Bridging Cybersecurity and Food Protection: A Multidisciplinary Approach

… plus many more.

Access the complete webinar archive here (scroll down to see the list of topics)

Food Safety News and Resources

This week’s food safety news features 5 unusual food safety alerts, 2 helpful (free) webinars and some good (or not?) results for chemical hazards in infant formula in the United States.

What does fraud taste like?

A few months ago I saw an intriguing story on LinkedIn, told by a food industry professional, involving butter from Italy. He recounted an incident that occurred 25 years ago, in France.

It began with an opportunity that his company’s buyers felt was too good to pass up: butter from Italy, offered by an unknown supplier at a very attractive price.

Fortunately, at his company, there was a policy to taste every batch of every raw material upon receipt, before it was accepted or used in production.

When this particular consignment of butter arrived and was duly tasted, both the production and quality personnel detected a strange, metallic taste. They rejected it.

A few weeks later, the press reported that the three largest French cheese factories, including the company he worked for, had purchased adulterated butter from Italy. His company was the only one that had rejected it and had not used it in production.

The butter was adulterated. It was later revealed it had been produced by an organised crime group in Italy, and contained almost one-third adulterants, which included chemical additives, vegetable fat, beef tallow and other substances normally intended for use in cosmetics.

The crime group not only made profits directly from the production and sale of the ‘butter’, but also from falsely obtained European subsidies.

Detecting fraud is not usually as easy as performing a simple taste test, but this story illustrates how even the simplest of controls can be effective. And even simple controls can be overlooked by big companies when they purchase bulk quantities of ingredients.

After that episode, buyers at the man’s company understood that behind every attractive opportunity, unknown risks can be hiding. And (no doubt) the other French cheese manufacturers, the ones who had NOT tasted the butter before using it in their products, implemented organoleptic testing for incoming materials.

Thank you to Bruno Sechet for sharing that story on LinkedIn

More about the large-scale Italian butter fraud (2000):

1. European Commission / OLAF press material on adulterated butter
https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_DOC-00-15_en.htm

2. European Parliament written question on the Fléchard adulterated butter case
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-5-2000-3240_EN.html

3. Just‑Food article “ITALY: Butter Fraud” (trade press summary of the OLAF case)
https://www.just-food.com/news/italy-butter-fraud/

4. Euractiv brief “OLAF uncovers huge butter fraud”
https://euractiv.com/de/news/olaf-uncovers-huge-butter-fraud/

5. European Commission press release on convictions in the adulterated butter case (Créteil court, France)
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_08_38

Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Warnings for lychee, almonds and pistachio
📌 Shocking stats for online supplements
📌 Large fine for prolonged kebab fraud
📌 Incidents with halibut, speciality liquor and panela

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

UK Kebab Maker Fined

A kebab meat manufacturer has been fined for selling kebab meat that was claimed to be ‘lamb’ but was mostly skin, fat, assorted meats and mechanically reclaimed materials such as neck trim.

The kebabs, which were supplied to takeaway stores and restaurants, carried labels that indicated they contained specific quantities of specific meats; however the court heard the manufacturer’s owners knew that these label claims were false.

The ‘lamb’ kebabs contained goat, lamb fat, skin, sheep meat and mutton. One sample, labelled 87% lamb, contained 51% meat and 40% fat. Other products contained meat species different to those declared on the labels.

The crimes were initially discovered when a local trading standards team undertook a regional sampling exercise for meat species in kebab meat in 2020 and 2021.

Invoices showed the company had purchased very little lamb but large volumes of skin, fat, goat and lower grade materials that cannot be legally labelled as meat. The court found the crimes had been deliberate and had continued for a “prolonged period”.

I’m disappointed to say that the company was fined just £500k. Sentencing guidelines allow for fines of between £15m and £24m, but the prosecutor told the court those amounts are "wholly unrealistic".

Kebab firm fined £500k for selling lamb that was mostly skin and fat

Read more

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We humans love chocolate (okay, most of us love chocolate*). It’s a food that is unique with respect to its sensory profile, psychoactive components and supply chain challenges. It is also affected by unique food safety and food fraud characteristics.

Let’s dive in.

Consumers love chocolate for its richness, smoothness and sweetness. But it’s not just the flavour and texture that draw us in. The first chocolate lovers, in Southern and Central America, consumed it in a form that was neither smooth nor sweet, but they were also crazy about it.

When it was catalouged by Western science, it was given a name that reflected its status and mythology, Theobroma cacao, meaning food of the gods (theo broma + cacao, the Indigenous Central American name for the cocoa seed)

The ancients prized it for its flavour, colour, and its psycho-active components theobromine, caffeine and phenylethylamine, deeming it an intoxicating beverage unsuitable for women and children.

Theobromine is a natural stimulant found in - and named after - chocolate. It acts on the central nervous system, providing a mild energy boost and can enhance cognitive function.

Caffeine is also present naturally in chocolate. It is also a stimulant, enhancing alertness, concentration and reaction times.

Phenylethylamine is known as the love chemical. It stimulates the release of endorphins and dopamine in the brain, enhancing mood and creating feelings of happiness and excitement.

So chocolate tastes great, enhances our mood and gives us energy and alertness. But that’s not the only reason we love it.

Chocolate also has a very unusual texture.

If you’ve ever munched on cheap compound ‘choc’, made without cocoa butter, you probably noticed it took a bit too long to chew and clear from the mouth. That unattractive goopy-fat-mouth-feel arises because alternative fats don’t melt as fast as cocoa butter.

Cocoa butter has a unique melting profile, which allows it to melt almost instantly at mouth temperature, while still remaining brittle and ‘snappable’ at room temperature.

Can you think of another food that can do that?

The special melting characteristics of chocolate are due in part to cocoa butter’s polymorphism. The fat molecules can arrange themselves into crystals of different shapes, each with a distinct melting point and melting curve.

Tempering, a process that involves controlled heating and cooling of chocolate, causes the cocoa butter to crystallise into the desirable “form V” crystal, which results in high sheen, and a satisfying snap, as well as the ideal melt-in-the-mouth texture.

Other crystal forms of cocoa butter are less desirable. For example, forms I and II melt at lower temperatures (17^oC and 23 ^oC respectively) and result in chocolate that is soft and crumbly with noticeable blooming.

Where does chocolate come from?

The three top cocoa-bean-producing countries are Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia, which account for 43%, 12% and 11% of global production respectively.

Most cocoa bean producers are farmers with small plots of land, rather than large plantations.

The trees take 4 to 5 years to mature, can produce good yields for around 70 years, and live to around 200 years. Cocoa trees produce thousands of flowers every year but very few flowers produce pods. The flowers are pollinated by biting midges called Forcipomyia.

It takes around 1,200 seeds from 40 pods to make 1 kg of cocoa paste.

There are three main cultivar groups for chocolate production: Forastero, Criollo and Trinitario, with the rare and expensive Criollo said to be less bitter and more aromatic.

The cocoa tree originated in the Amazon basin, and was either domesticated there 5,300 years ago, or was domesticated in Central America 3,600 years ago, having been transported from the Amazon basin by traders.

One set of researchers, who used genomic analysis of 200 cocoa plants, assert that the people who domesticated the trees, which were of the Criollo cultivar group, selected for genes related to the production of anthocyanins, theobromine content, and disease resistance. However, in the process, the yield suffered, with the domesticated trees producing fewer fruit per season than their wild ancestors.

Forastero-group cultivars, including Amenolado and Arriba varieties, are more disease-resistant and easier to grow than other cultivar groups and account for 80% of commercial chocolate production.

This post originally appeared in Issue 196 of The Rotten Apple

Cover image: Denny Müller on Unsplash

The Authentic Food Conference (EFF-CoP, 2026) in Dublin drew together many of the thought leaders in food fraud prevention and food integrity from around the globe. I was there, as both an enthusiastic listener and presenter.

In this month’s supplement for paying subscribers, I’m sharing my notes from the conference over two weekly instalments.

You’ll find new insights into familiar incidents, expert insights from food-fraud-adjacent fields, and two easily overlooked elements of food fraud prevention that kept coming up across the two-day event.

Contents

• Part I: New insights, challenges and solutions from across the supply chain, plus 6 unexpected food fraud facts.

• Part II: The neuroscience of dishonesty, how to be a successful fraudster, insights from an anti-corruption consultant, 2 overlooked elements of food fraud.

Read more

Subscribe to The Rotten Apple

• Lab confidentiality - a thorny issue

• Highlights from the food fraud conference

• The science of airline food

• Potato Salad Competition: answers and winners

• Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports

🎧 Listen 🎧

Hi lovely readers,

If you’re new here, thank you for joining me. A special thank you 👏👏 to David from the UK, Mere from Australia, Doris from Germany and Quality from Austria for becoming paid subscribers👏👏. Your financial support makes this publication possible.

The biggest shoutout goes to ✨🌟 John ✨🌟, who works with whistleblowers in New York and is our newest super-supporter (a Good Apple). John’s subscription pays for scholarships for students, academics and readers from developing countries. If you want one, get in touch by replying to this email.

Welcome to Issue 241 of The Rotten Apple, which goes out shortly before I begin my long journey home to Australia from Ireland, where I attended the inaugural Food Authenticity Conference.

What will I be eating during my 41-hour journey home? A lot of airline and airport food… Which inspired this week’s article about the science of airline food.

Also this week, I discuss the thorny issue of laboratory confidentiality, beginning with an apology about my comments in Issue 239.

Plus, the winners of last week’s potato salad safety competition and highlights from the conference.

Thanks for being here,

Karen

P.S. Love this newsletter? Please tell your friends and colleagues about it, and help grow our global community.

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Lab confidentiality - a thorny issue

Food fraud prevention experts always tell food businesses to verify results in certificates of analysis and laboratory reports/certificates for materials vulnerable to food fraud.

How exactly do you do this? Experts (including me!) are vague about the exact method.

Earlier this month, I shared my 7-step ‘Red Flag Review’ process, which describes red flags for pre-screening new suppliers, commercial red flags, documentation red flags, site audit red flags and more, plus how to prioritise red flags, whether to action, escalate or disengage and trigger points for reassessment.

In response, a reader, Christine, from a US-based honey company, wrote to tell me about her experience with a lab that refused to confirm or deny the contents of a ‘results sheet’ when questioned.

Turns out the issue is quite contentious. After I published a note about Christine’s experience in Issue 239, I heard from another reader, who works at a large and well-known laboratory, who told me that my coverage was unfair on labs, explaining that “staff regularly go the extra mile to be helpful, even when the enquiry isn’t from someone likely to spend anything on testing” and reminding me that confidentiality agreements prevent lab workers from sharing results with third parties.

I am sorry. I absolutely didn’t intend to imply that laboratories are ‘covering up’ for deceptive customers or that their employees are unhelpful. I tread a very fine line with some of the things I publish and this time I landed on the wrong side of the line. Sorry.

Where to from here? I discussed this issue with a number of food fraud and analytical experts at the conference last week, hoping to discover better options regarding checks and balances for verifying lab reports.

The good news is that in some countries, including the United Kingdom, it is possible to have law enforcement agencies verify results with the lab. This is because IAF1-member accreditation bodies such as UKAS, ANSI and JASANZ require accredited labs to share data with enforcement agencies on request.

If your business is in the United Kingdom, you can contact the National Food Crime Unit and ask them to check on suspicious results for you.

Unfortunately, if a lighter verification approach is needed, we didn’t come up with any new answers at the conference, beyond what I suggested previously (update supplier agreements to include permission to verify analytical test results with the issuing laboratory to avoid confidentiality issues).

If anyone has any better suggestions, please let me know by replying to this (or any) email. And thank you for those of you who take the time to write in; it means so much when people reach out to me personally - even if it’s to tell me I’ve crossed the line.

Highlights from the Food Authenticity Conference

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the first ever EFF-CoP Food Authenticity conference. It was a fantastic event. EFF-CoP is the European Food Fraud Community of Practice, an EU-funded project within the Horizon Europe research and innovation program.

In future issues, I’ll share some of the insights I learned. For now, here are my top four highlights.

1. Meeting my readers. A number of The Rotten Apple readers sought me out to say “hi”, including Ben, Sophie, Hans, and Dauphine. Special mentions to my ‘Dirty Money’ game buddies Pauline and Corrine.

2. Meeting my heroes. Many of the biggest names in food fraud prevention and research were in attendance, and I feel priveleged to have met Prof. Chris Elliott (known for leading the UK horsemeat scandal review), Prof. Saskia van Ruth (Wageningen University & Research, a leading expert in food authenticity), Ghislain Maréchal (a key figure in the EU Food Fraud Network), Selvarani Elahi (of the Food Authenticity Network), Annemieke Pustjens (Wageningen Food Safety Research, specialising in food authenticity and analytical detection methods), Karen Gussow (food fraud investigator) and Quincy Lissaur (SSAFE).

3. ‘Forced’ bonding events 😀. The conference included a range of active participation events, including a treasure hunt, an escape room, a specially devised ‘Dirty Money’ game and an astonishing percussion session where groups of participants stomped, clapped and slapped rhythms corresponding to spectographic peaks for cinnamon and paprika. Lots of fun.

4. Insights and stories, including a fascinating peek into why clenbuterol became a staple of unethical meat growers in the 80s and 90s, an exploration of “the cheating brain” by a neuroscientist and presentations from fraud experts from the financial and non-profit/charity sectors.

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Eating in the sky – the science of airline food

I’m one of those weird people who likes aeroplane meals. I get a curious thrill when the food trolley approaches and trays are handed out - excited to find out what (exactly) is under the cover.

But I know I’m a rarity: for most people, eating at 35,000 feet is a joyless experience.

Low cabin pressure, exceedingly dry air and the engine noise in the cabin all combine to numb our taste buds and make everything seem a bit bleh.

Let’s unpack the science of why flying delivers such a dull dining experience.

Your senses under siege

When we are at cruising altitude, cabin pressure can be as low as 75 kPa, or just 74% of ordinary air pressure at sea level. That’s around the level we’d experience on a mountain at around 8,000 feet. Lower pressure means fewer air molecules in the cabin, and this inhibits the ability of odour molecules to leave the food and enter the air in our nasal cavity.

When fewer odour molecules connect with our olfactory system, that diminishes our perception of aromas and flavours.

Dry cabin air can also dehydrate our sensory organs. The low cabin humidity of around 10 to 15 per cent (significantly lower than the average humidity found in many arid regions) prevents the solubilisation of odour molecules onto the mucosal layer at the back of the throat. This further reduces our sensitivity to flavour.

A series of experiments undertaken by Lufthansa in 2010 found that at cruising altitudes, the perception of saltiness drops by 20 to 30 per cent, while the perception of sweetness falls by 15 to 20 per cent. This is why a dish that tastes perfectly seasoned on the ground feels under-salted once you are in the air.

Surprisingly, however, sour, bitter and spicy flavours remain largely unaffected.

The role of sound, space and psychology

Perhaps a less obvious contributor to the flavourless dining experience while aboard is aircraft noise. The hum of the engines, air conditioning system, passenger conversations, even the toilets flushing, all impact our overall experience.

While researchers aren’t clear on why background noise compromises our sense of taste and smell, one suggestion is that it’s related to our sensory processing or cross-modal perception.

Cross-modal perception is the brain’s integration of inputs from multiple senses – sight, sound, smell, touch – into a form that other parts of the brain can more easily understand. The senses of taste and sound are closely linked, such that louder noises tend to suppress most taste perceptions. Interestingly, however, the perception of umami, or savoury taste, is actually enhanced by noise.

The unfamiliar environment of the aircraft cabin also impacts people’s psychological perception. The cramped seating, artificial lighting, vibration, plastic cutlery and the likely mismatch between our body clock and the airline’s mealtime all contribute to a poor impression of the food, no matter how good it actually is.

Of course, expectations play a role here too – most of us board already primed to hate airline food, which amplifies every perceived ‘flaw’ through confirmation bias.

Making dishes flight-ready

Delivering a menu that’s pleasing to the airborne palate is not an easy job.

Airlines attempt to punch through passengers’ diminished senses by upping the salt and spices. Most in-flight meals are seasoned with around 20 per cent more salt and sugar than a similar restaurant dish on the ground. Get the balance wrong, however, and passengers can be left with dishes that are overly salty or taste artificially flavoured.

Because of this, many airlines prioritise ingredients that are naturally high in glutamates, such as parmesan, shellfish and spinach, which can provide a depth of flavour without relying on sodium.

While Lufthansa found that seasoning oils can improve the aroma of dishes and tomato essences can provide a more harmonious taste experience, they conceded that the results are very subjective. No two passengers experience airline food in the same way.

How to keep your taste buds zinging when you fly

Spicy and umami-rich flavours hold up well at altitude, so if you have a choice, choose Asian cuisine or dishes that lean into bold ingredients like mushrooms, tomatoes, soy sauce or parmesan.

When it comes to drinks, the reduced air pressure alters how we perceive acidity and tannins, so be prepared that your favourite red wine on the ground might not stack up well in flight. The exception is sparkling wine – its effervescence is magnified in the dry cabin environment.

For non-alcoholic beverages, experts say tomato juice, with its naturally high levels of glutamate, is the perfect choice.

Agreed!

Main source: Cosmos (2022) ‘The science behind inflight food’, Cosmos, 21 October 2022. Other sources are linked inline.

Potato Salad Competition | Answers and Winners

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition.

The answers are: Salad 1: C | Salad 2: A | Salad 3: B | Salad 4: C

The winners

Three winners have been randomly chosen from correct entries and will receive a food safety champion mug.

The winners are: Nery, Trevor and Anson. Congratulations! I’ll write to each of you individually about your prize.

Congratulations to everyone who entered; almost 70% of you submitted answers that agreed with mine, and based on the two-hour-four-hour rule (also acknowledging that there are no 100% black-and-white answers in microbial ecology).

Explanations

Find the questions and scenarios in Issue 240.

Salad 1 was prepared and handled correctly until it arrived at the consumer’s home. Once at the home, it was left on the table from 10:30 am until the decision time of 3:00 pm, a period of 4.5 hours. According to the two-hour-four-hour rule, the salad has been in the temperature danger zone for too long and must be discarded; it should not be placed back in the refrigerator, and it should not be eaten.

Salad 2 was prepared and handled correctly with prompt cooling and refrigerated storage between preparation and serving. It was placed on the table at 1:30 pm, 1.5 hours prior to the decision time of 3:00 pm. According to the two-hour-four-hour rule, the salad has been in the temperature danger zone for less than 2 hours, so it can be placed back in the refrigerator or eaten now.

Salad 3 was placed on the counter immediately after preparation at 11:30 am, 3.5 hours prior to the decision time of 3:00 pm. According to the two-hour-four-hour rule, the salad has been in the temperature danger zone for less than 4 hours, so it can safely be eaten now but must not be placed back in the refrigerator (or sold as a takaway/take-home dish), and it must be discarded after 4 hours have elapsed.

Salad 4 was not prepared safely, with slow cooling of the potatoes. In addition, it was left on the bench for 2 hours before being taken to the picnic, and was left on the picnic table for 3 hours before the decision time of 3:00 pm. According to the two-hour-four-hour rule, the salad has been in the temperature danger zone for more than 4 hours, so it must be discarded.

Thank you to everyone who entered

I got great feedback about this competition, and I am so glad you enjoyed it. I certainly had fun making it.

Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Research: drivers of lead adulteration in turmeric
📌 Warning for organic foods
📌 Whole fennel seeds adulterated
📌 Incidents with mangoes, beef, octopus and more

Read more

Subscribe to The Rotten Apple

In this week’s episode:

• Lab confidentiality - a thorny issue

• Highlights from the food fraud conference

• The science of airline food

• Potato Salad Competition: answers and winners

🍏 For a transcript and sources, see Issue 241 🍏

• 🍄‍🟫💀Deadly mushroom outbreak (USA)

• ❓⚠️Mystery withdrawal (United Kingdom)

• ⚠️Unusual recall: Cat food for low thiamine (USA)

• 📰 Newspaper wrapper warning (India)

• 🔎🔬Possible source for infant formula botulism - root cause investigations ongoing (USA)

🍄‍🟫💀Deadly mushroom outbreak (USA)

Officials have declared a recent outbreak the United States’ deadliest from wild mushrooms after four people died in California. Forty-seven people were sickened in the outbreak, with four requiring liver transplants. Four people died. Typical numbers for mushroom poisonings for California are much lower, usually around 5 per year. The outbreak has been blamed on abnormal environmental conditions causing highly toxic wild mushrooms to grow in areas and at times that are atypical. Officials say that even experienced foragers struggled to distinguish between safe and poisonous varieties during the growing season.

California wild mushroom outbreak has killed four | Food Safety News

❓⚠️Mystery withdrawal (United Kingdom)

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has announced a food withdrawal under mysterious circumstances. All packages of frozen food for all products from the same company, and encompassing three brands, are included in the alert.

The reason? The FSA says the company “has been unable to demonstrate that the products in this alert have been produced and handled safely.”

Interestingly, the brand images shared by the FSA in conjunction with the alert are provided on a document dated 2025. Perhaps there have been previous alerts for this group of brands?

Food Alert “For Action”: To: Food Businesses and Consumers who have purchased and sold frozen products supplied by Inarah’s Frozen Foods Ltd | Food Standards Agency

⚠️Unusual recall: Cat food for low thiamine (USA)

A pet food manufacturer is recalling cat food because it does not contain sufficient thiamine, a vitamin crucial to neurological health. Without it, cats are at risk of neurological issues, seizures and death.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/other/these-recalled-pet-foods-may-cause-neurological-issues-see-list/ar-AA25cNZA

📰 Newspaper wrapper warning (India)

Food safety authorities have warned street vendors to stop using newspapers as wrappings and serving surfaces for food, saying newspaper poses risks from printing ink and is not hygienic.

FSSAI cracks down on newspaper food packaging after Mumbai vada pav inspection

🔎🔬Possible source for infant formula botulism - root cause investigations ongoing (USA)

The FDA has published their latest update on investigations into the ByHeart infant formula botulism scandal, indicating the source of contamination appears to be an ingredient, with the agency naming one of the company’s suppliers, as follows:

“The FDA also conducted an inspection at Dairy Farmers of America (the processor for Organic West Milk, which was a supplier to ByHeart). FDA and ByHeart sampled dairy ingredients from Dairy Farmers of America. Two samples from one lot of organic whole milk powder were shown by whole genome sequencing (WGS) analysis to match a clinical sample and a positive infant formula sample…. The FDA’s investigation into the root cause is ongoing with a focus on ingredients.”

https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/outbreak-investigation-infant-botulism-infant-formula-november-2025

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Rapid DNA method for seafood speciation
📌 Warning for fresh berries
📌 Two unusual frauds with seafood and veg
📌 Incidents with mangoes, carrots and milk

Subscribe now

8 June | Food Safety News and Free Resources |

• ⚠️Unusual recall: olive and almond cream for botulism (Italy, Malta)

• ⚠️Unusual alerts: STEC in olives, dried apricots and sprouts (Europe)

• ⚠️Unusual alert: tropane alkaloids in maize flour (corn flour) (Europe)

• ⚠️🦐 Recall: marinara mix for shell fragments (Australia)

• 🍼Good news (?) Infant formula tests (USA)

• 🎓Webinar - Aquatic Food Fraud: Impacts on Markets and Consumers and Tools to Fight it, 18th June

• 🎓Webinar - From Sample to Certificate: The Science Behind Compressed Air Analysis, 12th June

⚠️Unusual recall: olive and almond cream for botulism (Italy, Malta)

Commercially produced jars of olive and almond cream were the suspected source of two cases of botulism in Italy, with a recall announced for the retailer Lidl in Malta.

https://timesofmalta.com/article/lidl-recalls-product-food-safety-authority-warns-contamination-risk.1128562

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/screen/notification/844066

⚠️Unusual alerts: STEC in olives, dried apricots and sprouts (Europe)

There were three separate food safety alerts in Europe in May for toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) in fruit and veg, all discovered through companies’ own checks:

• Detection of STEC in mung bean sprouts from the Netherlands

• Detection of specific DNA of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) in green olives from Spain

• Detection of specific DNA of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) in dried apricots from Turkey via Spain

⚠️Unusual alert: tropane alkaloids in maize flour (corn flour) (Europe)

Maize flour (corn flour) from Poland was found to contain high levels of tropane alkaloids by a company in Germany. The levels were around 6 times higher than maximum limits.

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/screen/notification/841717

⚠️🦐 Recall: marinara mix for shell fragments (Australia)

Global Seafood Distributors (Australia) Pty Ltd has recalled 500 g packages of Seafood Marinara Mix due to “the presence of foreign matter (mussel shell fragments with product)”, with the regulator stating “food products containing shell fragments may cause illness/injury if consumed.”

I can attest to that, having needed emergency surgery from a mussel shell fragment after eating spaghetti marinara in 2024 (read about that in Issue 152)

https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/food-recalls/recall-alert/global-seafood-distributors-australia-pty-ltd-seafood-marinara-mix-500g

Thank you to reader Andrew from Australia + Taiwan for bringing this to my attention

🍼Good news (?) Infant formula tests (USA)

The FDA tested more than 300 samples of infant formula for heavy metals, pesticides, PFAS chemicals and phthalates and reported that (verbatim):

• “An overwhelming majority of products tested had undetectable or very low levels of contaminants.”

• “All samples tested significantly lower than EPA's drinking water requirements for lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic.”

Arsenic was detected in 94% of samples. Lead was detected in 80% of samples. Cadmium was detected in 66% of samples. Mercury was detected in 5% of samples.

Pesticides were detected in 1% of samples. PFAS chemicals and phthalates were detected in 5% of samples at levels above 28 ppt and 116 ppb, respectively.

https://www.fda.gov/media/192087/download?attachment&lctg=130824820

🎓Webinar - Aquatic Food Fraud: Impacts on Markets and Consumers and Tools to Fight it, 18th June

Hosted by FAO GLOBEFISH, the webinar will focus on fraud in fisheries and aquaculture, particularly mislabeling and species substitution, while examining how market demand, price incentives, and supply chain complexity contribute to these issues.

Register here:

https://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/news-events/events/events-detail/fao-globefish-webinar-series-2026--aquatic-food-fraud--impacts-on-markets-and-consumers-and-tools-to-fight-it/en

🎓Webinar - From Sample to Certificate: The Science Behind Compressed Air Analysis, 12th June

Attend the IFSQN webinar for an in-depth look at the compressed air testing process, from sample receipt to accredited results. Learn how contaminants are analysed, what your report reveals about air quality, and how to interpret results for compliance and safety.

Register here: https://event.webinarjam.com/3qnw0/register/nzv9luqg

Subscribe now

🍊 For more free webinars, visit ASK SONIA FREE Food Safety Webinars 🍊

In this week’s food fraud news

📌 Warnings for lychee, almonds and pistachio
📌 Shocking stats for online supplements
📌 Large fine for prolonged kebab fraud
📌 Incidents with halibut, liquor and panela

Past Issues of Food Safety News

Food Safety News, May 2026

Food Safety News, April 2026

Food Safety News, March 2026

Food Safety News, February 2026

Food Safety News, January 2026