Issue #34 2022-04-18
Faking the anti-fake features, greenwashing enforcement activities and horsemeat in human food supply chains (again!)
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.
Changes for The Rotten Apple
Greenwashing enforcement
The fakers who faked the anti-fake features and fooled the internet
Horsemeat in the human supply chain, again (sigh)
A (perhaps) boring report and a not boring video
Food fraud incidents and horizon scanning updates from the past week
To hear me read this issue out loud, click here.
Happy Monday!
Changes are coming to this publication.
For 8 months now I have been working to deliver you a newsletter that will keep you up to date with food integrity news without all the fluff, filler and advertorials that usually clog up your inbox. It was something of a leap of faith to start The Rotten Apple, but I’m happy to report that it is growing strongly and receiving heaps of positive feedback.
However, to continue delivering The Rotten Apple as an independent, advertisement-free publication, I need to make a small change to the format.
Starting on 2nd May, I will introduce a paywall for the very end section of the newsletter, the food fraud and horizon scanning updates, and for the audio version. Never fear, the main body of the emails, all the articles and stories, like the salmonella in chocolate article will still be completely free and will be sent to everyone every week, just like now.
You’ll be able to stay as a free subscriber and keep receiving almost everything that you are getting now, or you can become a paying subscriber to also receive the food fraud and horizon scanning updates and the audio version. Subscriptions will be a very reasonable $US10 per month or $100 for an entire year and will be used to support my efforts in bringing you the most interesting and pertinent food integrity news every week.
Expense-account-friendly receipts and tax invoices will be provided, so you can claim your subscription from your employer or the tax-man. Subscriptions will be available from next week.
This week’s issue has three stories of food fraud and misleading practices, that provide insights into how frauds are perpetrated and – more importantly – what to be aware of to protect your brand from food fraud.
I’ve also got links to an interesting supply chain video and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s assessment report, which includes a whole chapter on the risks to food, agriculture and fisheries, as well as potential adaptation solutions.
As always, this issue ends with food fraud incidents and horizon scanning updates that have been added to our food fraud database (Trello database) in the past week.
Thanks for reading,
Karen
P.S. If you know someone who’d benefit from this newsletter, please share it with them. Subscriber’s emails don’t get sold, shared or added to any other list. Ever.
Sustainable Supply Chains
Greenwashing Enforcement Gets Heavy
One of Europe’s largest fruit juice and smoothy producers, Innocent [beverages], has had its advertisements banned in the United Kingdom (UK) after a regulator ruled they misled consumers about the product’s environmental sustainability characteristics.
The advertisements implied that consumers would make a positive contribution to the environment if they purchased Innocent’s products. However, in the UK, the products are packaged in single-use plastic bottles made up of 50% virgin materials.
Regulators judged that any product marketed in single-use plastic with this level of virgin material could not claim to make a positive environmental impact.
Innocent is not the only brand to find itself on the wrong side of greenwashing complaints. In January, Lipton Ice Tea advertisements were banned in the UK for implying that all of their bottles were made from 100% recycled plastic when the caps and labels were not recycled. The ads had a small font disclaimer about the caps and labels but the regulator judged this could be easily overlooked.
The premium UK mineral water brand Aqua Pura also got in trouble for claiming their bottles were 100% recycled when not every part was. Regulators warned the brand owners not to claim that products packaged in plastic are “eco-friendly” or “nature friendly”.
In short: 🍏 Regulators’ and consumers’ attitudes to claims about environmental benefits and sustainability are changing 🍏 Food and drink brands should expect more interrogation and less tolerance of “green” claims, especially when it comes to single-use plastics 🍏
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60481080
https://www.foodservicefootprint.com/asa-turns-the-screw-on-recycled-bottle-ads/
Food Fraud
Fraudsters faked anti-fake features and used videos to convince their victims
Almost every week, I add a new report of counterfeit beverages to our food fraud (Trello) database. One that I added two weeks ago was more interesting than most.
The usual pattern for beverage counterfeiting is that criminals choose a brand of drink that is popular or premium, or both. They purchase empty bottles, caps and labels that look identical to the authentic packaging. They fill the bottles with beverage that is similar to the original drink. They sell the finished product – which we call a counterfeit product – through either legitimate or shady sales channels.
Counterfeiting affects spirits like whiskies and vodkas, as well as wines and soft drinks (sodas). Brand owners go to great lengths to protect their brands from counterfeiting. Best practice anti-counterfeit systems include a suite of features that together can protect both consumers, legitimate sellers and brand owners.
For a premium beverage, such as a whisky, anti-counterfeit protections would usually include overt features, covert features, intellectual property protections and market surveillance.
Overt features are markings or features that consumers and traders can see on the package that (should) confirm the product is genuine – think holograms and special seals.
Covert features are secret features that are not obvious to ordinary consumers. They can include invisible inks, chemical ‘signatures’ on or in packaging that can only be seen using special scanners, serialisation features and the like. Covert features are used by brand owners to ‘prove’ that an article is genuine or not, which is important if there are safety or commercial problems with a (potentially) counterfeit product. For example, if you are the brand owner of a vodka that is linked to a poisoning problem, you really want to be able to prove that the poisonous drinks are fakes and were not made by you!
The incident that caught my eye two weeks ago was a massive - and massively profitable - counterfeiting operation in China. The news report suggested that sales of the counterfeit drink might have reached around 100 million yuan (around US$15.7 m). Often – but not always – the most profitable counterfeit operations make and sell high priced, ultra-premium products.
In this case, the product was a premium wine that was sold directly to consumers online. Nothing unusual there.
What was unusual – or at least unusual to be caught! – was that the counterfeiters had put considerable effort into convincing their buyers that the product was genuine. And, to get the sales volumes needed to make millions, they also generated their own internet traffic. It’s fair to say this would have taken some effort. There were at least two dozen people involved, and at least four locations were found when the operation was uncovered by authorities.
To get sales, the counterfeiters went after consumers online, using website content or paid ads to get internet traffic from people who were interested in the brand. That allowed them to sell their fakes directly to consumers. Direct-to-consumer sales reduce the risk posed by having fakes stocked on shelves in wholesale or retail outlets, where agents of the legitimate brand might see them. It’s kind of like the old “buy it from the back of a white van” scenario, except it can more easily be perpetrated at scale.
Now, consumers aren’t idiots. Unfortunately, in China counterfeiting of all types of products is common. Some have said of China that consumers are tolerant of buying fake wines and spirits – that is they are aware they are purchasing fakes – because the drinks are used as status symbols to impress guests and the actual flavour and quality are less important to some Chinese buyers than consumers in other markets. But this story doesn’t support that view.
Consumers of this brand were at least a little wary of buying it online, because the counterfeiters took the unusual step of creating videos to assure consumers of the authenticity of the fakes they were selling. Yep, they were educating their consumers about the fake anti-fake features on the fake products. Say wha?
Firstly, they copied the ‘anti-counterfeiting chips’ that can be found on the genuine product, with a high degree of accuracy, according to news reports. That’s not uncommon for premium fakes. But they also went a step further.
They hired online celebrities to publish videos on a short-form video platform to show consumers how to identify “genuine” bottles of the wine. The videos (presumably) reinforced the ‘authenticity’ of the counterfeits by portraying the anti-fake features on the counterfeit bottles as markers of the genuine brand. Amazing.
In short: 🍏 These counterfeiters went to great lengths to convince their customers of the authenticity of the fakes they were selling 🍏 Direct-to-consumer sales are lower risk for counterfeiters as the likelihood of their products being detected is lower than for products on store shelves 🍏
Food Fraud
Horsemeat Fraud - The Fraud That Keeps on Giving
The infamous horsemeat food fraud scandal of 2013 is long finished. You thought. But illegal horsemeat trading went on for years after the scandal broke. At least that’s what Spanish investigators are saying.
A man who has already been convicted for food fraud crimes in the horsemeat scandal in France, plus up to ten more people may soon be facing court in Spain over their roles in – you guessed it – horsemeat fraud. These frauds took place from 2016, three years after the European problems with horsemeat became public knowledge.
Prosecutors claim that these alleged criminals were buying unwanted horses and taking them to two dodgy slaughterhouses in Spain. The horses were unfit for human consumption and hence cheap to buy.
At the slaughterhouses the horses’ identities were falsified, using tricks such as reusing microchips from dead horses, whose deaths had not been officially recorded. Horses in Europe have “passports” to prevent horses that have been treated with veterinary drugs or that are otherwise unfit for consumption from being used for human food.
Investigators found multiple horse passports in locations associated with the two slaughterhouses, including 114 passports for horses that were not fit for consumption and ten for horses that had been imported to Spain without permission.
The investigators allege that after the horse’s identities had been changed at the slaughterhouses, they were killed, processed and their meat was sold. The buyers paid in cash and fictitious invoices were used to disguise the volume and value of the trade. Horse birth records were also faked, to account for the differences in animal slaughter counts and animal death counts.
Testing of samples from the corrupt supply chains found harmful veterinary drug residues and cancerous cells in the illegal horse meat.
The investigators allege that some of the dodgy horse meat was bought by a company belonging to Johannes Fasen, whose company and associates were allegedly also trading and slaughtering horses in other parts of Europe at the same time. The Spanish courts believe that Fasen was aware of the fraud occurring at the Spanish slaughterhouses when he introduced the meat to human food supply chains. It ended up in human food in Italy and Belgium.
Fasen was arrested in Spain in 2017 in connection with this case and was in custody in Spain when he was convicted by France for his role in the 2013 horsemeat scandal. He maintains his innocence.
Interestingly, most commentators agree that dangerous vet drugs were not found in the 2013 horsemeat investigations. However, in this current case, media reports said they were found in retention samples that the Spanish authorities had seized from slaughterhouses and warehouses in 2017. Yes, that’s four years after “horse-gate”.
Surely it’s not possible that people continued to perpetrate horsemeat crimes for years after “horse-gate” became public knowledge? It certainly looks that way. The Spanish courts are soon to find out.
In short: 🍏 A man convicted of fraud for his role in the 2013 horsemeat scandal was allegedly also part of another horsemeat fraud in Spain three years later 🍏 The investigators found cancerous cells and veterinary drugs in horsemeat in human supply chains 🍏
Sources:
Food Supply Chains and Climate Change
An interesting video and a long report
If you are into food supply chains (or honey), the British Food Standards Agency has just published a video about honey supply chains. The first few minutes are snooze-inducing, with lots of UK-centric regulatory stuff, but if you make it to 08:10, you will be rewarded with fascinating and detailed information about honey production methods and global honey supply chains. Click here to watch:
Long Read From The IPCC
This long read is just for the policy-nerds. It’s a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And its technical summary (yes summary!) is 96 pages.
It’s the IPCC’s latest assessment report; Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability for Policy-Makers, which includes a whole chapter on the risks to food, agriculture and fisheries, from climate change, as well as potential adaption solutions.
It’s chock-full of sentences like this monster of policy-jargon:
“Integrated, multi-sectoral solutions that address social inequities and differentiate responses based on climate risk and local situation will enhance food security and nutrition.”
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
🍏 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/ 🍏
Food Fraud Incidents and Horizon Scanning
Food fraud incidents added to Food Fraud Risk Information Database in the past week
Paneer made with (unauthorised) skim milk powder and fat spread was found and seized by authorities, who are investigating the manufacturer - India
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/patiala/milk-items-found-not-fit-for-human-consumption-385072
Counterfeit mineral water, empty bottles and labels were seized, and 12 suspects were arrested after an investigation uncovered a large operation in which underground water was filtered and placed into bottles with other brands’ labels. The counterfeit mineral water was sold to dealers for distribution across several provinces. The operation is said to have been ongoing in rural areas since 2018. It was shut down in October 2021, and was recently reported on by authorities – China 09/04/2022
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202204/09/WS6250c72fa310fd2b29e55ede.html
Illegal gummy sweets that contained synthetic cannabinoids instead of natural cannabis are alleged to be the cause of death of a 23 year old in the United Kingdom. It’s alleged that the sweets were expected to contain natural cannabis (which has a low risk of harmful overdose) but instead contained synthetic cannabinoids which can cause more severe side effects, including death – United Kingdom 08/04/2022
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-60998420
Olive oil from a clandestine operation and that contained vegetable seed oils has been identified by authorities, who issued a consumer-level withdrawal – Spain
https://www.aesan.gob.es/AECOSAN/web/seguridad_alimentaria/ampliacion/INF2022_54.htm
Food fraud horizon scanning (other updates to the Food Fraud Risk Information Database in the past week)
Melon seeds and watermelon seeds
Melon seeds and watermelon seeds from Vietnam, Iran, Taiwan, have been flagged as being affected by illegal or undeclared colourants including rhodamine B, orange #4, carmoisine, 18050-Red 2G, Brilliant Blue, Tartrazine, Ponceau 4R Red, sunset yellow - Global 08/04/2022
Next week
Unusual seafood trading patterns in Asia (coming straight to your inbox in Issue #35, next week)
See you next week!
Cover image: “Borrowed” from the Honey Supply Chain video of the UK LGC (with thanks!)