Food Quality Magazine
ISSUE 02 | AUTUMN 2014
Table 3: Food Fraud Means by Production Segment
Means
Affected Commodities
Production Segment
Grower Transporter Processor Storage Retail
Cutting
Olive oil, milk, honey and milk chocolate
X
Adding fillers
Milk, rice and milk chocolate
Adding sugars
Honey
X
Filtration
Olive oil, honey
X
Chemical treatment to change
flavor, texture and
appearance
Seafood, olive oil, milk, honey, milk
chocolate and minced beef
X
Clouding/clarifying
agents
Olive oil, honey
X
X
X
Disguise speciation Seafood, minced beef, rice
X
Disguise spoiling
Seafood, olive oil, milk and minced beef
X
X
Disguise flora
Honey
X
X
X
Mislabeling
Seafood, olive oil, milk, honey, rice, milk
chocolate and minced beef
X
Relabeling
Seafood, olive oil, honey, rice and minced beef
X
X
Disguise chemical or Seafood, olive oil, milk, honey, rice, milk
biological content
chocolate and minced beef
X
are the different ways that food
fraud can be accomplished and
the methods are the specific way
the criminal gets the job done, it is
not surprising that the methods of
actually committing an act of food
fraud are highly dependent on the
specific commodity you are dealing
with and your specific location on
the supply chain.
Let us look at seafood as an example.
In Table 4, below, we see three columns. Column one specifies the
type of food commodity, in this case
seafood. Column two specifies the
various means that can be used by
fish fraudsters to commit food fraud
including chemical treatment; disguising speciation, spoilage, origin and
contamination, and; the mislabeling
and re-labeling of seafood. Colum
three specifies the methods that
must be used by a perpetrator of
food fraud for each of the means to
commit food fraud. For example,
the chemical treatment of seafood
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
to change its flavor and appearance necessarily requires the use of
coloring and/or flavoring agents. If
the means to commit seafood fraud
is to disguise speciation then the
method to do it is to misrepresent
the product by freezing, fileting,
processing, use of coloring and/or
flavoring agents and or the falsification of labels or outright lying to
the consumer at the fish counter.
If the means is to disguise spoiling,
there are several methods that can
Table 4: Food Fraud Methods and Seafood
Commodity Means
Methods
Chemical treatment to change Use of coloring and flavoring agents
flavor, texture and appearance
Disguise speciation
Disguise Spoiling
Seafood
Misrepresent species by freezing, fileting of fish, processing fish,
use of coloring and flavoring agents, falsification of labels and lying
Misrepresent freshness by falsifying catch date, freezing, use of
coloring and flavoring agents, falsify labels or lying
Disguise origin
Misrepresent true origin of fish by freezing, fileting of fish, use of
coloring or flavoring agents, falsify labels or lying
Disguise chemical or biologic [Z\ܙ\