Issue #2 2021-08-23
A food fraud car chase, greenwashed bacon and COVID survival on meat
Problems with turmeric and curcumin supplements; heavy metals, low potency and non-vegan capsule material
COVID virus survival on refrigerated meat (how many weeks, you say?!)
The FBI gives chase (is this our first food fraud glamour crime?)
Allegations of ‘Greenwashing’ by the world’s largest pork exporter
Food fraud incidents reported in the international media in the past week
Hi,
Welcome to Issue 2 of The Rotten Apple, a weekly newsletter for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors.
Food fraud crimes are rarely glamourous; not the type of crimes you would usually expect to see on your favourite TV cop show. So it was a bit exciting to read about an incident this week, in which an alleged perpetrator tried to outrun the law by ramming a FBI vehicle. More on that below.
Also this week; scary new research about the survival of the SAR-CoV-2 virus on meat, problems with turmeric supplements and controversy over the carbon footprint of a major pork processor.
As always, this issue ends with a list of food fraud incidents from the past week.
Thanks for reading!
Karen
Supplement Fraud
Problems with Turmeric and Curcumin Supplements; heavy metals, low potency and non-vegan capsule material
In the 2021 Interpol-Europol anti-food-fraud operation, Opson X, food supplements and additives were the second most seized food type, by quantity, after alcoholic beverages.
There have been a number of surveys and studies over recent years that have revealed high levels of fraud within this sector. Turmeric and curcumin supplements are among those products affected.
A leading North American supplement manufacturer is so concerned about the authenticity and safety of turmeric and curcumin products that in 2020 they performed their own market survey. They purchased 23 samples from a major online marketplace and tested them for a variety of characteristics. Tests were performed in-house and verified by external laboratories.
Regarding potency, five samples did not declare the potency or concentration of turmeric on their product labels. Of those five, four contained only very small quantities of active ingredient; less than 25 mg of equivalent turmeric extract.
For the other 18 samples that did declare potency on pack, all except one were true to label with respect to the concentration of turmeric they contained. However, most contained significantly lower concentrations of turmeric than would be expected by consumers, according to NOW’s Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Dan Richard. Many declared just 50 mg of turmeric per capsule. By comparison market-leading brands contained more than 450 mg.
NOW also reported potential issues with claims about the ‘natural’ status and the vegetarian status of products. Four samples contained synthetic curcumin and two were gelatin capsules (that is, not suitable for vegetarians).
Two samples contained lead at levels higher than California’s Prop 65 limits. Lead in turmeric has been an ongoing concern since at least 2016 when routine sampling by New York State (USA) food inspectors found high levels of lead in retail turmeric, leading to a recall of multiple brands in the USA. It has been alleged that lead chromate is deliberately added to ground turmeric to improve its colour and perceived quality by food fraud perpetrators.
Read more:
https://www.nowfoods.com/now/nowledge/now-tests-curcuminturmeric-extract-sold-amazon
http://fortune.com/2016/08/09/turmeric-recall/
Food Safety
COVID Virus Survival on Refrigerated Meat
A team of researchers from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology (China) recently investigated the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to remain viable on meat during cold storage.
Please note that their manuscript has been pre-printed, it has not yet been peer-reviewed.
They built upon earlier research by teams at National University Singapore and South China Agriculture University which had both independently found the SARS-CoV-2 virus could remain constant and viable on food surfaces including salmon, chicken and pork for up to three weeks.
The researchers investigated the survival of SARS-CoV-2 on small cubes of beef and mutton meat, in test tubes stored at 4°C and -20°C.
At refrigerator temperatures (4°C) they reported a slow decline in viral titers over 3 weeks. The virus remained viable for three weeks, but after four weeks, no infectious virus could be recovered.
“At refrigerated temperature, SARS-CoV-2 remained viable for more than three weeks on both beef and mutton…”
At freezer temperatures (-20°C), there was an even slower decline in virus titers; only 0.5 log10 reduction after 8 weeks. Infectious viral particles could be recovered after 8 weeks’ storage at -20°C. There was no difference between viral survival patterns on beef and mutton.
The researchers report that there was speculation in Beijing that a COVID-19 resurgence was caused by contaminated cold-chain food or food packages. The researchers stress that there have not been reports of disease being caused by eating food thus far and speculate that any such resurgence would be caused by workers coming into contact with cold-chain products. They suggest that epidemic prevention strategies should consider the food cold supply chain as a possible source of cross-region contamination.
Read more: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-728948/v1
Food Fraud
The FBI gives chase
Food fraud crimes are not glamorous. Often food crimes involve nothing more exciting than forging invoices or doctoring import certificates. But here’s a story that got my attention.
It’s the story of a 49 year old man from the United States who was chased by FBI agents and ended up on the run with pockets full of cash. Allegedly.
The FBI had an arrest warrant for the man in relation to his alleged seafood fraud scheme. According to documents tendered to the district court in Rhode Island, he allegedly evaded arrest by ramming the arresting officers’ vehicle in his car. He narrowly avoided hitting a police officer and fled through the gap between the vehicles he had rammed.
A food fraud* with car chases! Now I have seen everything.
The man remained on the run for nine days, allegedly moving between towns and checking into hotels using false names. He was believed to have been carrying more than $100,000 in cash and was hunted down by officers from the FBI and a local ‘Violent Fugitive Task Force’.
The man appeared before the District Court in Rhode Island on 16th August. He has been accused of wire fraud and identity theft in relation to the food fraud scheme he is alleged to have orchestrated.
The scheme supposedly involved him setting up a fictitious catering company and buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of seafood, including lobster, sea bass, shrimps and scallops on credit. He also purchased prime beef and wild boar meat.
He then allegedly used stolen identities to obtain funds to pay some of his suppliers. The food products were sold to legitimate food businesses. In a nasty twist, some of his customers were apparently the very same food companies that he had impersonated and from whom he had stolen funds to buy the food in the first place.
*allegedly
Read more:
Sustainability
Allegations of ‘Greenwashing’ by the world’s largest pork exporter
The world’s largest pork exporter, Danish Crown, has been accused of greenwashing in relation to its claim that its bacon is made from ‘climate-controlled pigs’.
According to Investopedia, “Greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company's products are more environmentally sound.”
Danish Crown used a study conducted by Aarhus University, Denmark, to justify its claims, which included stating that the carbon footprint of the pork sold by Danish Crown has fallen by 25% since 2005.
However, the study did not take into account the contribution of indirect land use to the carbon emissions. Indirect land use includes the land that is used for producing animal feed, such as the feed for the pigs. It can account for up to 50 percent of the climate footprint of food production.
What’s more, the study was paid for by Danish Crown.
A complaint has been filed with the Danish Consumer Ombudsman against Danish Crown by a group comprising the Vegetarian Society of Denmark, the Climate Movement, and the green student movement Den Grønne Studenterbevægelse.
Read more:
Food Fraud Incidents
Food fraud incidents reported in the international media in the past week
Wholesale quantities of lobster, shrimp, scallops and ribeye steak were fraudulently purchased and sold from and to legitimate food companies in an elaborate fraud. One man has been arrested - USA https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/business-finance/seafood-fraudster-targeted-us-foods-other-distributors-and-restaurants
An illegal operation in which gur (jaggery) was made with chemicals, sugar and flour has been shut down - Pakistan https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/879402-gur-making-unit-sealed-over-adulteration
3000 L of milk has been discarded by authorities after they found it was contaminated with water and chemicals - Pakistan https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/food-authority-destroys-3000-liters-adulterat-1327809.html