Food Quality Magazine
ISSUE 02 | AUTUMN 2014
be employed by the food fraudster
including the misrepresentation of
freshness by falsifying catch dates,
freezing, processing, use of coloring
and/or flavoring agents and or the
falsification of labels. Other means
and methods for committing fish
fraud are outlined in Table 4, below.
The Countermeasures
There are three important questions
to consider about food fraud countermeasures. First, is how do you
identify them? Second, after you’ve
identified them, how do you select
the right ones? And third, how do
you determine which ones are the
most effective in counteracting the
food fraudster’s chosen means and
methods?
The fact is there are literally thousands of questions we could ask that
relate in one way or another to the
issue of food fraud. And, in fact,
the major standards organizations
have produced literally thousands
of questions on food safety, food
defense and even some on food
fraud. But the questions we use today to prevent food fraud are almost
exclusively based on the intuition of
security subject matter experts. For
example, a review of over 1500 standards issued by the major industry and government standards organizations found over four hundred
and fifty different questions that relate in one way or the other to the
issue of food fraud. All of the food
fraud standards we analyzed were
based on subjective opinion rather
than science-based analysis.
Let us look at how to derive countermeasures using honey as an
example. In Table 5, below, column
one represents the commodity type,
in this case honey. Column two identifies the different segments of the
supply chain, i.e. growers (G), transporters (T), processors (P), storage
facilities (S) and retailers (R). The color red signifies high risk. The color
yellow signifies medium risk. Green
signifies low risk of a food fraud
event of the type indicated occurring
at that point along the supply chain.
In columns three and four we identify perpetrator means and methods.
In column five we detail examples of
some of the specific actions that, if
taken, will deter, detect and prevent
honey fraud. These we call countermeasures. All countermeasures are
the result of correlating the means
and the methods with the specific
actions necessary to thwart a successful act of fraud against a specific
commodity at a specific point along
the food supply chain.
Table 5: Deriving Food Fraud Countermeasures
Commodity
Segment
Means
G
T
P
S
X
X
X
X
Countermeasures
R
X
Methods
Cutting and
adding
Add water to increase
volume; add sugar
syrups
Laboratory tests for water content
and sugar types
Viscosity testing
Organoleptic testing
X
Honey
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Chemical, physical and biological
treatment to
change flavor,
texture and
appearance
Disguise flora
Add water/thickeners/
coloring agents; use
clouding/clarifying
agents; add chemicals,
filtration to remove
pollen; avoid testing for
heavy metals; falsify
bee foraging zones in
contaminated areas
Laboratory tests for water content,
thickeners and coloring agents
Add flavoring agents
Laboratory tests for taste additives
Laboratory tests for pesticides
Laboratory tests for pollen type and
content
Laboratory testing for heavy metals
Strong chain of custody certification
Organoleptic testing
Laboratory tests for pollen type and
content
X
X
X
X
X
Disguise spoiling
Mask crystallization of
sugars; misrepresent
harvest date
Laboratory tests for water content
to mask crystallization of sugars
Organoleptic testing
Strong labels program
X
X
X
X
X
Mislabeling of
finished product
Apply falsified labels at
the time of filling
X
X
X
X
X
Relabeling
Relabel containers
X
X
X
X
X
Accept mislabeled and/or relabeled products
Continue to misrepresent and sell product
Strong labels program
Supply and demand price correlations
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