Issue #26 2022-02-21

Food integrity news: herbal supplement fraud questioned, food scandal dissection and avocado wars

Welcome to The Rotten Apple, an inside view of food integrity for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for weekly insights, latest news and emerging trends in food safety, food authenticity and sustainable supply chains.

• Dodgy DNA-barcoding results for herbal supplements (uh oh!)

• Nerding out on food scandals; how a scandal unfolds

• Avocado woes in USA

• Just for fun; Italian food ‘crimes’

• Food fraud incidents and horizon scanning updates from the past week

Hi,

Thanks for joining me.

It’s avocado week for The Rotten Apple! On Tuesday I enjoyed marvellous 🥑 avocado 🥑 toast made with fruit I picked from a friend’s farm on Australia’s sunshine coast. Warm from the sun, the avocado had thin, smooth green skin and tasted fresh and slightly ‘sappy’.  Delicious!  Meanwhile, American avocado eaters were freaking out after the US banned imports from their biggest supplier. More on that below.

In this week’s main topic, I question long-held beliefs about the rate of adulteration and fraud in herbal supplements, after one of the big movers-and-shakers in herbal supplement DNA-barcoding analysis was accused of fraud in the journal Science.

Also this week, food fraud researchers dissect historical UK food scandals and – just for fun – market researchers share a list of Italian food ‘crimes’… like cutting spaghetti with a knife.

As always, this issue ends with a list of food fraud incidents from the past week.

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Thanks for reading!

Karen

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Food Fraud

DNA Barcoding for Herbal Supplements; Did we Overestimate Fraud in Supplements?

Last week honey fraud allegations were under the spotlight.  This week it’s herbal supplements amid allegations that a food fraud researcher himself committed fraud with his herbal supplement analyses.

Should our view of supplement fraud be reassessed in light of the allegations?

In 2013 explosive evidence was published by researchers at the University of Guelph, showing that scores of herbal supplements by market-leading (North American) brands were inauthentic.  The allegations were aired widely in mainstream media outlets and inspired the New York Attorney General to investigate further.  Those investigations resulted in major retailers, including Walmart and Walgreens, pulling suspect products from their shelves.

The retailers turned to science for help.  And the lead author of the original paper was there to assist, with consulting companies, certification products and ventures he founded.  Was it unethical for him to blow the whistle on the supplement industry, and then launch commercial enterprises that would help solve its problems?  Perhaps. But the questions surrounding him and his work go deeper.

The 2013 paper relied on results obtained using DNA barcoding, a method that can be used to identify different plant species in a product using short sequences of DNA.

Unfortunately, like the honey authenticity challenges I discussed last week, DNA barcoding is not a magic bullet for identifying food fraud.  After the original paper was published, a number of experts refuted the allegations of supplement fraud and questioned the methods used in the study.  Worse still, colleagues within the University of Guelph later asserted that some of the data was falsified or plagiarised. 

Even the lead author of the paper later agreed, in the years following the publishing of the paper, that DNA barcoding is not a good standalone authenticity test, because it cannot quantify different substances in a mixed sample and because DNA degrades during the processing of herbal ingredients.

The journal Science recently published a long article on the lead author, his business activities, his apparently false claims about his own qualifications and achievements, plus a detailed list of actual examples of plagiarism from his papers, in both text and figures.  One horrifying example is a graphic he claimed was created from his cannabis identification test data but is identical to one about Ginseng, published by a completely different group of researchers in 2012.

Some former post-graduate students and colleagues told Science that their initial concerns about the man’s work were ‘quashed’ by the University of Guelph. The university is now investigating.

For his part, the man has strenuously disputed the concerns about the research and about claims that he concealed commercial conflicts of interest.  Claims about his own achievements, qualifications and grant-receipts have been removed from websites.

Is herbal supplement fraud as widespread as was once claimed? 

The allegations about the 2013 supplement paper are serious enough, and credible enough that any fraud accusations arising directly from that paper should be withdrawn.  Our Trello-hosted Food Fraud Risk Information Database does not include data from that paper, which pre-dates the Trello board.  However, in light of this new development, last week I added notes to the supplements and herbal supplements sections about the shortcomings of relying solely on DNA-based authenticity methods.   

Like NMR results for honey authentication, DNA barcoding methods should form part, but not all, of an authenticity test.  That means a ‘fail’ DNA barcode result should prompt further investigations, not a public shaming of the company. 

In short: 🍏 Allegations of widespread herbal supplement fraud in the North America market made in 2013 have been questioned after the lead researcher was accused of falsifying data and concealing conflicts of interest 🍏 DNA-barcoding shouldn’t be used as a standalone authentiticy test for herbal supplements 🍏

Source: https://www.science.org/content/article/this-scientist-accused-supplement-industry-of-fraud-now-his-own-work-is-under-fire

Last week’s honey fraud discussion can be found here

Food Crime

Nerding Out on the Anatomy of a Food ‘Scandal’

Researchers in the UK have spent countless hours cataloguing and deconstructing 50 food ‘scandals’ from 1970 to 2018.

Their paper shows how a classic food scandal – which can be food safety or food fraud related – unfolds. After the fraud is discovered, there is the public shaming of the food brand, in traditional and social media.  This leads to embarrassment and reputational loss. Next there is “moral reckoning” in which the accused company is shunned by industry and customers, who distance themselves from the emerging scandal.

The next phase is retribution, in which the company loses contracts and registrations.  Finally, some companies manage to reach “The Solution”.  In this phase, the company provides an account of the incident that is acceptable to the industry and public and offers a scapegoat, which might include the resignation of a senior manager.  Not every company reaches a satisfactory solution.  Those that do not craft good “accounts” of the situation are said by the researchers to be “not in control of the narrative”.  Those companies are less likely to find their way out of the scandal and may go into administration or cease trading.

The researchers argue that food fraud incidents are often portrayed in the media and the criminal justice system as isolated aberrations, when in fact they should be portrayed as intentional criminal actions.

What was most interesting about this paper (for me) was the assertion that investigations by authorities cease prematurely because the investigators seek to gain enough evidence to prosecute just one or two entities and stop when that goal is achieved.  This prevents the full extent of the crimes and their root causes from being investigated or rectified.  The authors mention one case as an example, in which, after a successful case could be brought against one or two major players in the criminal network that perpetrated the food crimes, that other minor actors were not investigated or pursued.

If you are interested in UK food fraud ‘history’, the paper includes succinct descriptions of eight scandals including the famous horse meat scandal and some that are less well known. Check out Table 1 of the paper for those.

In short: 🍏 Companies that do a good job of controlling the narrative in a food scandal seem more likely to survive the scandal 🍏 Companies should expect a “moral reckoning” if they are caught up in a scandal 🍏 Food crime investigations don’t go as deep into supply chains and root causes as researchers would like, stopping instead when there is enough evidence to prosecute 🍏

Read the paper: https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s10611-021-10000-3

Food Supply Chains

Avocado Wars

The US-Mexico trade in avocados was cancelled, then reinstated in the last fortnight.

Why is this relevant to food integrity? 

Mexico supplies around 80% of the US’s avocadoes.  After Mexican imports were banned, avocado prices soared by almost 60% in some American cities.  Price and supply disruptions increase motivations for food fraud…. For example, if you were operating an organic restaurant and suddenly couldn’t get organic avocados, might you feel tempted to serve non-organic avocadoes instead?   Opportunities for food fraud can also increase when there are supply disruptions.  For example, if the price is high, there might be an opportunity to smuggle ‘black market’ avocadoes across borders, an activity perhaps deemed not worth the risk when prices are lower.

The ban started after a USDA inspector was threatened with violence after the inspector refused to certify a shipment of avocadoes at the border.  A USDA citrus inspector was murdered in Mexico in 2020.  Inspections, and therefore imports, were halted while security officials worked to ensure the safety of USDA workers. Avocadoes are big business in Mexico and organised crime is said to be deeply involved in the avocado trade.

Imports were allowed to recommence a few days ago, after safety for US workers was improved.  The avocado toast eaters of America will be pleased.

In short: 🥑 Food trade disruptions can create opportunities and motivations for food fraud 🥑 Avocado trade between the US and their biggest supplier, Mexico was disrupted temporarily last week 🥑

Sources: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/2/18/us-lifts-ban-on-mexican-avocado-imports-usda-says

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/18/mexico-avocado-ban/

Just for Fun

Italian Food ‘Crimes’ (Just for Fun)

You’re doing Italian food wrong.

A British market research firm asked Italians about the worst food crimes committed by non-Italians when eating foods like pizza and pasta.  Among the worst crimes are

• putting ketchup on pasta,

• adding pineapple to pizza and

• putting pasta into cold water to boil it.

A less well-known crime is adding cream to carbonara sauce.

But (phew!), apparently, it’s okay to eat pizza with a fork.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/articles-reports/2022/02/03/italian-food-crimes

🥑 🥑 🥑

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Food Fraud Incidents and Horizon Scanning

Food fraud incidents added to Food Fraud Risk Information Database in the past week

Legal action has been taken against a store that was selling unauthorised herbal supplements, adulterated products and mislabelled infant formulas – USA   https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2022/02/17/ag-detroit-marketplace-mislabels-products-has-unsafe-food-practices-ignored-cease-and-desist/

Allegations of widespread misinformation or fraud in provenance claims for Kumamoto asari clams have surfaced - Japan        https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14549909

More than 10,000 L of milk was discarded by authorities after it was found to have very low levels of natural milk fat - Pakistan           https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/933943-10-450-litre-tainted-milk-destroyed

Prohibited energy drinks were seized by authorities - Pakistan               https://dailytimes.com.pk/884577/kp-fsa-cracks-down-continue-on-adulterated-mafia/

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Coming next week:

An insider reveals deception in the blueberry bagel game.

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