200 | 4 Years of Food Safety, Food Fraud and Sustainable Supply Chains |
Plus a special offer and our best 'Just for Fun' posts
This is The Rotten Apple, an inside view on food fraud and food safety for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for insights, latest news and emerging trends straight to your inbox each Monday.
Celebrating 4 years of The Rotten Apple
Special offer
Popular posts
Food Safety News
Best of ‘Just for Fun’
Food fraud news, horizon scanning and recent incidents
Hello lovely reader,
Welcome to this special edition of The Rotten Apple - Issue 200! If you’re new, thanks for joining me. I’m here to keep you ahead of the pack and save you time, by bringing you only the most relevant and interesting food safety and food fraud news from around the world each week.
In this, my two hundredth weekly issue (that’s four years!), I want to give a huge shoutout to you, my wonderful readers.
Special mentions to
Kenzie, JMay, Samantha, Jergen, Cesare, Theresa, Dave and Duncan who’ve been here from the start;
Elise, Victoria, Mariane, Helen, Nathan and Janette whose special ‘Good Apple’ subscriptions support scholarships for academics and students; and
Super ambassadors Katie, Maria, Deborah, Richard, Sonia, Eimeir, Andy and Abyra who’ve spread the word and helped grow our community of food safety champions.
I’ve had a ball creating this newsletter for you every week since 2021. My favourite parts have been meeting you at online events and in-person conferences.
In this week’s issue, I’ve included links to popular posts from past years, as well as our usual food safety news for everyone (a couple of interesting items this week), and food fraud news for paying subscribers, including a massive milk scam in Europe.
Thanks for being here,
Karen
P.S. “Reliable, easily accessible, good information which I can read on the go and use in my day to day operations” is how one new paying subscriber described this publication. Aw shucks.
Special Offer: Huge Savings on Group Subscriptions
Get your whole crew aboard and save thousands
To celebrate four years of The Rotten Apple I’m offering group subscriptions for up to 100 readers who have the same company email domain, for just USD599 for 12 months.
That’s a saving of $9,401 dollars.
Offer closes 1st September 2025.
From the Archives
Here is a look back at some of the most popular articles from among the hundreds we’ve published in the past 4 years.
Got a favourite? Let us know in the chat.
When Food Fraud Goes (Horribly) Wrong
In 1858, children in Bradford, England began to suffer from vomiting and convulsions. Then they began to die. Initially, doctors suspected cholera, which was common in England at the time.
Tropane Alkaloids: Plant Toxins That Kill
It’s Uganda, March 2019. Five people are dead, hundreds more are in hospital. The cause is a deadly foodborne illness.
Background Checks for Food Fraud Mitigation
A background check is an investigation into the past activities of business owners and operators. In the context of food fraud prevention, background checks are important but easily overlooked.
Top 10 Root Causes for Allergen Recalls
Allergen-related recalls are among the most common food safety recalls globally. They are the most common recall type in the United Kingdom, and the second most common type in the United States. In Australia and New Zealand, recalls due to allergen-related labelling errors are the most common type, followed by other allergen-related causes (Source:
Viruses and Hand Sanitisers
Most waterless hand sanitisers use alcohol as their active ingredient. Ethanol and isopropyl alcohol are both used. Alcohol-based hand sanitisers are generally considered to be effective for preventing the spread of clinical infections such as skin infections and wound infections in hospital settings. They are also thought to be effective at reducing the transmission of cold and flu viruses from hands and surfaces.
Shall we chat? (Survey results)
We have the technology! Last month, I asked if you were interested in access to a community chat, one that is open to all subscribers.
Some of you were keen to check it out. Others not so much. Here are the results. To join the chat, click the button below the poll results. Desktop and app versions are supported.
Food Safety News and Resources
My hand-curated food safety news roundup focuses on emerging hazards and unusual recalls so you can stay up to date with the latest knowledge. In this week’s news roundup:
a food defence incident allegedly motivated by religious and racial intolerance,
a child gets E. coli from a sick dog (and the pet food manufacturer refuses to recall contaminated products), and
a new food source for infant botulism - a confirmed case from peanut butter.
Plus free webinars on pesticide MRLs, internal auditing and hazard analysis.
Click the preview box below to view.
Just for Fun
It’s weirdly satisfying to find a perfect ‘Just for Fun’ item for you. And more difficult than you might imagine.
Here are some of the best ‘Just for Funs’ from the past 4 years…
Looks like a tumour, tastes great! - November 2021
What Makes a Salad a Salad? (Humour for Science Nerds) - December 2021
Cheezam, the Shazam for Cheese - January 2022
Turn a Pickle into a LED - June 2022
Pastry Chef Magic (Chessboard Cake Video) - July 2022
Mmm This is a Delicious-Looking Ashtray - October 2022
A New Way to Serve Pumpkins (or Torture Hippopotamuses?) - October 2022
An Important Letter from the U.S. Embassy (Just for Fun) - January 2024
Bubblegum, How it’s Actually Made - February 2024
Just for Fun: Who Ya Gonna Call? - February 2024
When Flies Eat (Just for Fun) - March 2024
(More) Truly disgusting foods - just for fun - May 2024
Just for Fun: How to Make a Pickle Sandwich - July 2024
The Best Normal Dish For Getting Screwdrivers Out Of Your Food (AI Recipes) - August 2024
Want to browse the whole archive? Paying subscribers can access the entire list of Just for Fun articles (current count: 134) and every other article organised by topic (current count 613), here.
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
In this week’s food fraud news:
📌 New law requires businesses to prevent and detect food fraud
📌 Methods for garlic origin, rice variety, honey adulterants
📌 Warning for origin fraud in European specialty foods
📌 A massive milk scam in Europe, yam flour adulteration, jasmine rice fraud and more.
New food fraud law
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