How American citizens Are Tricked Into Procuring Counterfeit Food

So, you think this is olive oil, right? Wrong. Well, maybe some ofit is, but this is actually a classic example of foodfraud. Extra virgin olive oils arebeing switched out with cheap ones And fraudulentto sell something labeled as something else. Why is thisfish being mislabeled? Your parmesan cheeseproducts do not contain any Parmesan cheese.

There was no one brand thatstood out as completely safe. Wow, so we can't eatanything. I guarantee you, any time aproduct can be passed off as something more expensive,it will be. It's that simple. Counterfeits, dilution,substitution and mislabeling. Food fraud notonly harms consumers wallets, it puts theirhealth and safety at risk.

We might not know theoverall impact of food fraud because so much of whatfraudsters do is hidden from us and has been forcenturies. Some estimates say foodfraud affects at least 1% of the global food industry,at a cost as high as $40 billion a year, accordingto the Food and Drug Administration. Grocery Manufacturers ofAmerica estimated that 10% of the commerciallyavailable food in the United.

States is adulterated. That's one in ten. It means if you're not onthat eight item or less checkout line, you've gotsomething in your cart when you leave the supermarket that's probably bogus Here's how and why fake foodsits secretly in our kitchen cabinets. According to the FDA, foodfraud is considered economically motivatedadulteration or EMA.

It's a monetary impact tothe consumer and to the food manufacturers, but it'salso a potential public safety, public healthimpact. It robs us of nutrients andcan kill people and has done. Larry Olmstead researchedfood fraud for years and published his book RealFood Fake Food in 2016. As I worked on this book, mydefinition of fake food became any time what youbuy is not what you think.

You're buying; doesn'treally matter whether it's legal or illegal, it'swhere you're you're being tricked. You're buyingsomething that's not what you think it is. The worst offenders caninclude seafood, meat, dairy, honey, alcohol,spices. The fraud happens more withmore expensive foods. Totally make sense, right? There's a higher margin.

Take your extra virgin oliveoil as an example. Fraud usually occurs herewhen a cheaper oil is added to the more expensive oil,and the label still reads 100% extra virgin oliveoil. That's food fraud. Olive oil has beenadulterated for thousands of years because it is of highvalue and it is sought out. They might flavor it withbeta carotene and maybe color it with a littlechlorophyl to make it a.

Little more green. And sothen you've got a lower quality, cheaper oil. So both of these olive oilsI got at the grocery store and both of them are thestore brand, but one cost way more than the other. This one had a label of100% Mediterranean blend of extra virgin olive oil. So the olives were sourcedfrom a bunch of different European countries and itsaid it was packed in Italy.

And there was no expirationdate. And when I purchased thisone, this one was a 100% California extra virginolive oil, first pressed, cold pressed, unfiltered,no artificial colors, preservatives or flavors. And this one had anexpiration date. It said that these oliveswere harvested in October, November 2022 and that itwould be good on your shelf until August 2024.

And it was much moreexpensive, roughly twice as much as this olive oil. And this one had way moreinformation about where this olive oil came from. Now, let's look at the spicemarket as another one that's vulnerable to fraud. Think of an expensive spicelike saffron. This tiny amount cost me$20 at the store. Saffron can be bulked upwith some other material.

Like plant stems and soldas the same, according to the FDA. Popular spices like basiland chili powder from a range of different brands. Anything that's kind ofcolored orange, brown and ground up can be passed offas turmeric. It's the ultimate bait andswitch. And then there's fish. The FDA says seafood fraudcan occur when a less.

Expensive species of fishis substituted for a more expensive species. After all, it's kind ofhard to know what fish you are buying, right? If you're experienced chefor fishmonger, you can look at like a red snapperfillet and tell whether it's red snapper. But, 99% ofconsumers can't. Most of the fish we eat iswhite fish. Every fillet looks prettymuch the same, which is why.

There are so muchsubstitution. The FDA is mandated by law to inspect2% of the imported seafood, which is, I think,a very, very low bar. In fact, the US imports asmuch as 85% of its fish. The federal fisheriesenforcement is serious business. Agents from NOAAand US Customs tear open a containerfilled with frozen fish from Thailand. They're lookingfor fraud. First, it's important tounderstand the matrix that.

Food fraud lives in. There's intentional andunintentional types of food risk. Unintentional risksinclude food safety and quality, like accidentalfoodborne illnesses. CDC estimates about 50million people a year contract a foodborneillness. Only 20%, one in five ofthose, can be identified. So there's 40 millionpeople a year getting sick from something they atethat we don't know what it.

Is. And a good guess wouldbe that fraud has something to do with that. Then there's intentional. That's where food fraud isalongside food defense. The difference is fraud ismotivated by economic gain and defense is motivated byharm. If you have a ton of coffeeand you can turn that into 1,2 tons by adding somecheap filler to it, you've just increased your profitsby 20%.

And a lot of these productspass through a lot of hands. They go from small growersto big trucks to tankers to boats to processing plants. It's not necessarily likethis big company that's selling you coffee that'sripping you off. It can happen in a lot ofways along the way. Even the FDA says it can'testimate how often this fraud happens or itseconomic impact. Over the last ten years,the most common fraud.

Committed is lying about ananimal's origin and dilution or substitution. Both ranking at 16% ofincidents recorded. Dilution and substitutionare exactly what they sound like. Perhaps somewherealong the supply chain, the real expensive process ofrefining something like fresh olives is ignored. Maybe a little canola oilis added instead. Then there's the removal ofvalue when an ingredient or.

Part of a food isintentionally left out, taken out or substitutedaltogether. And that substitute can bea non-food substance. That's the 14% of therecorded food fraud incidents using non-foodsubstances. The pandemic has given us achance to focus on supply chains and forced us to. For example, during thepandemic, labeling fraud really spiked in 2021 to21% of the types of fraud.

That were committed andrecorded. You know, if we knew allabout it, why hasn't it been solved? The key was weweren't focusing on prevention. Food fraudprevention, if we do it right, is boring. We're the fire marshalchecking exits and smoke alarms, not not catchingthe bad guys. The US has laws in place toensure food safety. That's part of what the FDAdoes today.

Basically, all food fraud,all product fraud, is illegal under one law oranother somehow. Before the FDA existed,manufacturers could add basically whatever theywanted into the food. Think of Upton Sinclair'sThe Jungle. That book was published in1906. That same year, food safetyregulation began with the Meat Inspection Act and thePure Food and Drugs Act, which outlawed adulteratedand misbranded food items to.

Protect consumers. This ultimately led to thecreation of the FDA. The Food and DrugAdministration. Since then, laws have hitthe books to further food safety protocols like theFood Safety Modernization Act signed into law in2011. And then horsemeat. The fraud was on a grandscale. Horsemeat was blended intobeef in the UK across Europe.

And. Sold to unsuspectingsupermarkets for a period of eight months in 2012. The scandal was exposed. And that was a great wake upcall. Some companies purposelymislead on labels. Prosecuting the fraudsterscommitting the crime can be tricky. After all, they'repurposely trying to avoid that detection. Butcriminals are caught.

Like in 2016. Product labeled marketpantry, 100% Parmesan contained cheaper Swiss andcheddar cheese and an organic filler calledcellulose, which can be derived from wood pulp. Castle cheese was caughtadding wood pulp and cheddar to its grated parmesan thatthey sold as 100% parmesan cheese. The FDA does allow fillerslike cellulose in cheese,.

But it can only make up 4%of the total ingredients. The president of the companygot a $5,000 fine, 200 hours of community service andthree years of probation. For its part, the Food andDrug Administration says its job is to make sure fooddoesn't hurt you, not to police the labels. Fraud is tough for theconsumer in terms of food because it's difficult. They don't have a lab intheir kitchen.

The food fraud preventionthink tank has a five question survey consumerscan use when shopping for food. One What type ofproduct is it? Be aware of product that youput on you, in you or plug in the wall to quality. Can you recognize thedifference between the products? If you can'teasily tell the difference that makes you morevulnerable to fraud. If I drink scotch, Icouldn't tell if it's a.

Difference between a $50bottle and a $5,000 bottle. So I know I could bedeceived at that point. Three. Supplier Do you knowthe retailer or the supplier? And do you trustthem? So when you turn that box ofcereal or a bottle of juice over and read the back,there's a lot of information there that's required bylaw that's helpful to the consumer. And then question four areyou buying this item online?.

The supply chain can beshrouded in more mystery when shopping online. So how did you find outabout this website? Is it reputable? But it depends on how youfind that supplier. And finally, five: complain. Okay, it's not a question,but the food fraud prevention think tank saysif the retailer is legit, they will want to know.

I think manufacturers can bethe victims as well. The FDA also relies onconsumers reports. In recent decades,fraudsters have gotten more sophisticated in thetechniques they use to fake the food products. And that means that ourdetection methods and our test methods and standardshave to be better at detecting fraud. That's why the U.S.

Pharmacopeia Conventionprovides a framework for organizations to detect itsvulnerabilities. We have food fraudmitigation guidance, so it is a supply chain riskmanagement tool to really take a look at which onesare the more risky products suspected to beadulterated. Sometimes it feels like thisis not that big of a deal, but the more fraudsters areable to achieve, the more we end up paying in the end.

As consumers. These cases rarely result incriminal penalties. If you want to be like adrug dealer and import heroin and you get arrestedon a large scale, you're going to go to jail. But ifyou can make $80 million importing adulterated honey,and then you're going to get a slap on the wrist andsome fines, why wouldn't you do food instead of drugs ifthere's no basically criminal downside to it?.

So as long as we don't takeit seriously, why should the perpetrators take itseriously? What we want is the foodindustry just to be focused on making food and not haveto worry about looking over our shoulder, checkingdifferent suppliers. And that's going to impactmore food being produced, better food, safer food,less expensive food. There's plenty of thingsfor us to worry about in the world today, and food fraudshould not be one of those.

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