Issue 94 | Trends in Food Safety and Food Fraud | Intro to HACCP (training replay) | Packaging Fraud | Reverse Engineering Famous Dishes |
2023-06-26
Food fraud and food safety trends - stuff you need to know
Live training replay: HACCP and food safety systems for complete newbies
How to deal with packaging fraud
Food Safety News and Resources Roundup
Reverse-engineering famous dishes (just for fun)
Food fraud news, incidents and updates
Hello, Happy Monday,
Welcome to Issue 94 of The Rotten Apple. Thank you for joining me. And a 👏 big thank you to Helen 👏, our latest ‘Good Apple’ supporter whose subscription provides five new scholarships for academics and students. If you want one of those (= free access to paid goodies), reply to this email and I will hook you up.
Last week I hosted a free live training session for food safety newbies and there is a link to the recording in this week’s email. Our next live training is about Food Safety Culture, scheduled for August 17th. Details on our live events page.
The June supplement for paying subscribers is all about how to deal with packaging in food fraud programs. Find a link below. Also this week, a fun video in which a chef reverse engineers famous dishes, blindfolded.
The big story this week is about new and emerging food safety and food fraud risks and trends, as highlighted in the European Commission’s ACN 2022 report. It’s relevant to countries outside Europe as well. I unpack the whole report and pull out the most useful parts for you in this email.
As always, this issue ends with food fraud news and incidents from around the world for paying subscribers. You can peek below the paywall and check out all the other benefits of a paid subscription - with a free 7 day trial, just click the green button on the paywall.
Thank you for reading, and have a lovely week,
Karen
By the way, 👏 94% of readers say they enjoy this newsletter 😊
Food Fraud and Food Safety Trends - EU 2022 Report Unpacked
Every year the European Commission publishes a report summarising the issues they have identified in food safety, feed safety and food fraud. They call this the Alert Cooperation Network (ACN) Annual Report.
The ACN is a network comprised of EU member states, countries from European Economic Areas, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Switzerland and the European Commission.
The report combines data from the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), the Administrative Assistance and Cooperation Network (AAC) and the Agri-Food Fraud Network (FFN).
RASFF is for risks to human health from food or food contact materials, and risks to animal health or the environment from feed. The data is publicly available.
AAC is for cross-border violations of food legislation that do not present an obvious health risk. The data is shared between ‘competent authorities’ (such as government organisations).
FFN is a network that is activated when fraud is suspected. The data is confidential.
Food Safety Results
In terms of food safety, the largest number of notifications in 2022 were related to pesticide residues. This is unchanged from 2020 and 2021.
The most affected food types and countries of origin were fruits and vegetables from Turkiye due to pesticide residues, followed by Salmonella in poultry meat products from Poland and food contact materials from China.
Aflatoxins in nuts, nut products, seeds and cereals accounted for five of the top ten recurring food safety alerts with the worst-performing country for aflatoxin-contaminated products being the USA.
Food contact materials accounted for a notable number of food safety alerts in 2022, with a total of 219 notifications. Half of these were notified because the materials were found to contain chemicals that could migrate into foods, including aromatic amines, formaldehyde and lead. Many of the products were from China and included bamboo components which are not allowed in plastic food contact materials in Europe.
Food fraud results
In the ACN statistics, food fraud notifications come from the food safety alerts (RASFF) as well as the regulatory compliance alerts (AAC) and the direct food fraud notifications through the FFN.
Within the food safety RASFF system, there were almost double the number of alerts assigned to the category of “fraud” in 2022 compared to 2020 and 2021. The fraud category is assigned when there is an improper or absent health certificate or analytical test report or an attempt to import food illegally.
The fraud notifications in the Food Fraud Network (FFN) are alerts which are sent from one ACN member to another about suspicious activities and/or requests for cooperation.
They numbered 600 in 2022, significantly more than in 2021, which saw 407 notifications. The report writers stress that this is not an indication of more food fraud occurring but of more notifications, which is evidence of more cooperation between the FFN members.
Many of the notifications were related to two special enforcement actions which were carried out by the network. One enforcement action targeted imported adulterated honey and the other targeted the illegal trade of domestic pets.
Almost half of the notifications in the Food Fraud Network in 2022, were related to the illegal trade of cats and dogs (276 of 600).
Of the other half, not related to the trade in cats and dogs, 73% of notifications were related to products that were traded within the EU and 27% from outside the EU.
Goods from China made up 21% of the notifications for products from outside the EU and they were mostly related to honey and fish. India accounted for 12% of the notifications and mostly concerned the undeclared addition of water to shrimp.
For EU-traded goods, Spain accounted for 15% of notifications within the FFN network, and most of these were for suspicions about fraud in squid, or mislabeling of ‘ordinary’ olive oil as extra virgin olive oil. The Netherlands accounted for 13% of notifications and these were mostly related to the misdescription of animal products or the smuggling of animal products.
Significant frauds and categories
Honey and royal jelly had the highest number of food-related food fraud notifications and this is because of the coordinated enforcement action conducted in 2022 which concentrated on the adulteration of honey with extraneous sugars. See Issue 81 for a report on the honey fraud investigations in Europe.
Fraud in live food animals, as related to their illegal trade and the sale of meat not fit for human consumption was common. The frauds took the form of forged or fraudulent passports, microchips and health certificates as well as smuggling and illegal trade. Horses were the most often notified animal in this category.
Meat and meat products, fish and fish products and fats and oils were the next most reported food types, at approximately equal numbers. For meat, the suspected frauds were smuggling, illegal import, illegal production or slaughter and mislabeling. For fish, most suspected frauds were species substitution, tuna coloured with unauthorised additives or suspicious trading of glass eels. In the oil category, all frauds involved olive oils.
Dietary supplements and dietetic foods had more notifications than in 2021. The sale of unauthorised products, the addition of unapproved components and unauthorised health claims were the main fraud types in these foods.
There were 37 suspected frauds related to improper, suspicious or illegal claims about geographical origins notified in 2022. The most commonly affected food type for this type of fraud was meat and meat products, such as Prosciutto di San Daniele, followed by wines like Prosecco and dairy products like Parmigiano Reggiano.
There were 90 notifications of suspected fraud in animal feeds and pet foods from the RASFF, AAC and FFN. They were mostly related to unapproved or undeclared treatments or additives, such as unauthorised nutritional additives like vitamins, amino acids or antioxidants; colourants or flavours; and unauthorised pesticides including chlorpyriphos or ethylene oxide. Other frauds in animal feed and pet food were from false or unauthorised nutrition or health claims.
Biggest issues
Here is a list of the most frequent or common food safety and food fraud issues from the ACN report, in no particular order.
Pesticide residues (pesticides not allowed in Europe) in fruit and vegetables.
Salmonella in poultry meat, poultry products and herbs and spices.
Aflatoxins in nuts, nut products and seeds from USA, Egypt, India and Turkiye.
Dangerous chemicals in food contact materials, such as packaging or serving ware, from China.
Honey and royal jelly adulterated with extraneous sugars.
Fraud in live horse trading (passports, microchips and health certificates).
Meat fraud in the form of illegal trading, smuggling and sale of meat not fit for human consumption.
Fish species substitution fraud and unauthorised colourants in tuna, fraud in squid from Spain.
Shrimp from India with undeclared added water.
Illegal trading of glass (juevenile) eels.
Supplements and dietetic foods: sale of unauthorised products, unapproved components and unauthorised health claims.
Fraudulent claims of origin for protected origin products: meat, wines and dairy foods.
Animal feed and pet food: fraudulent addition of nutritional additives, fraudulent nutrition claims, presence of unauthorised pesticides.
🍏🍏🍏 The Report: https://food.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-06/acn_annual-report_2022.pdf 🍏🍏🍏
Live Training Replay - Introduction to HACCP and Food Safety
June’s live training event was held online on Thursday.
The training is aimed at people in support roles in the food industry, suppliers to the food industry (equipment, service, etc.), students or career-changers.
Click the preview below to access it online (for paying subscribers).
Food Fraud in Packaging Materials - Special Supplement
In February, the Corporate Manager of Food Safety and Quality Assurance from a famous American turkey brand did my food fraud prevention programs training course and asked me how to approach packaging fraud in their supply chains.
Packaging fraud has not been widely studied, and my company is one of the only food fraud organisations to track fraud in packaging materials.
Her question inspired this month’s special supplement. Click the preview box below to access it online.
Food Safety News and Resources
The big news this week is the USA approving cell-cultivated meat. Click the link below for this and other food safety news and resources from around the globe. It’s been expertly curated (by me! 😎) and is free from filler, fluff and promotional junk.
News and Resources Roundup
Just for Fun – A Chef Reverse-engineers Famous Dishes, Blindfolded
I could watch chef videos all day.
Enjoy!
What you missed in last week’s email
Supplement Special: meet the expert who keeps fraudsters on their toes
The complicated world of dietary supplements
Fraud in supplements - a multi-flavoured smorgasbord
100 Weird Food Facts (that you probably knew but are fun anyway (just for fun)
Food fraud news, incidents and updates
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, incident reports, and emerging issues, plus an 🎧 awesome audio version 🎧so you can catch up while on the go
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
Food safety concerns about plastic food containers and serving ware containing bamboo and other plant-based materials such as rice husks, hemp, or wheat straw, have led the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) to
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