What is food fraud?
Food fraud is the intentional and deceptive manipulation, misrepresentation, or adulteration of food products to gain economic benefits, mislead consumers, or evade regulatory measures. Types of fraudulent activities can involve adulteration, overrun, tampering, mislabeling, or other dishonest practices that compromise the authenticity, safety, and quality of food items.
Common types of food fraud include:
- Dilution: Mixing high-value ingredients with lower-value ones (e.g., olive oil blended with tea tree oil).
- Substitution: Replacing high-value ingredients with cheaper alternatives (e.g., sunflower oil partially replaced with mineral oil).
- Concealment: Hiding the poor quality of a food product (e.g., using dangerous dyes to mask defects on fresh fruit).
- Unapproved Enhancement (Adulteration): Adding unauthorized substances to enhance quality (e.g., melamine in milk, dye in spices).
- Counterfeiting: Infringing intellectual property rights (e.g., falsifying trademarks).
- Mislabeling/Tampering: Making false claims on packaging (e.g., falsifying country of origin, changing expiry dates, up-labeling products).
- Grey Market: Selling undeclared, diverted, or stolen products.
