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The European Food Fraud Network has published its 2020 annual report.
Fraudulent activities affecting the food chain can pose a risk to the consumer.
The number of requests for administrative assistance for suspected food fraud increased from 292 in 2019 to 349 in 2020, an increase of 20%.
Below is the number of suspected frauds by type of product:
- Oils and fats: 51 (olive oil was the most notified).
- Fish and fish products: 34 (illegal treatments: addition of undeclared water, nitrates, carbon monoxide)
- Poultry and poultry products: 28
- Honey and royal jelly: 25
- Meat and meat products (excluding poultry): 25
- Food supplements, enriched foods, dietetic foods: 22
- Fruit and vegetables: 21
- Wines and alcoholic beverages: 12
- Plant protection products: 11
- Cephalopods, crustaceans and derived products: 10
- Herbs and spices: 9
- Milk and dairy products: 8
- Other products: 43
Five types of non-compliance were listed:
- 37% concern mislabelling, for example when non-extra virgin olive oil is presented as extra virgin.
- 25% concern falsification of documents or traceability problems.
- 21% concern substitution/dilution/addition/removal in the product: this refers to the process of mixing or replacing a high value ingredient with a low value one, such as watering down wine.
- 13% on unapproved treatment and/or process: tuna treated with nitrite.
- 4% on infringement of intellectual property rights: this refers to counterfeit products.
Adulteration is the third most common cause of fraud with 21% of cases.
Phytocontrol can provide you with solutions to authenticate your products.
The laboratory is able to offer 3 types of analysis using NGS technology:
- Meat packs (more than 6000
