Did you miss our Food Fraud webinar with Dr Karen Everstine from Decernis a couple of weeks ago? It was a fantastic opportunity to interact with a leading expert in the field, but don’t panic we have a recording of the webinar available - you can view it here:
In addition, Dr Everstine answered some of the burning questions which came out of the webinar, which may also be questions you are wrestling with. This quick summary will highlight some of the important points and key questions relating to your Food Fraud assessment.
Q1: My company has a large portfolio of ingredients, where do I start?
If you have a large portfolio of ingredients, you will want to perform a screen to narrow those down to ones with potential vulnerabilities. This screen can be performed based on what makes the most sense for your company; for example, based on supplier relationship, the degree of vertical integration of your supply chains, or based on what is known about historical fraud occurrences in those ingredients.
Q2: What are some of the lessons learned by other companies that have been impacted by food fraud?
Food fraud can have a significant impact on consumer confidence and company reputation and it is worth the effort to mitigate that risk. Well-managed supplier onboarding programs and strong supplier management are important – especially for high-risk ingredients and ingredients that are core to your business.
Q3: How do we decide on the mitigation strategies to implement after we identify our vulnerable ingredients?
The specifics of this will be company-dependent, but it will come down to what is feasible and what will have the biggest impact without being cost-prohibitive. Some companies focus on their supplier management programs, while others will implement targeted third party laboratory testing on very high-value ingredients.
Q4: As this is a relatively new requirement in food safety standards, what advice would you give an company when preparing for an audit of their food fraud plan?
You know more about your supply chain than your auditor does. Therefore, it’s important to make sure you can document that you’ve considered all the factors recommended by the CPO and can support the assessments you made in your plan. At this point, at least when looking specifically at food fraud, auditors need documentation that the assessment was done, meets the requirements, and is reasonable.
Q5: What kind of testing can be done to detect food fraud? What are common methods used?
There are various methods used depending on the product – for example, DNA-based methods are most appropriate for meat and fish species, while multi-component products will require other methods. One promising area is the continued development of non-targeted methods which do not rely on testing for a particular adulterant or analyte.
Q6: What products are most commonly affected?
Food fraud has been an ongoing challenge in products such as olive oil, fish, honey, spices, and milk (in certain parts of the world).
Q7: What are latest scams that could turn into new problems on the horizon?
Most food fraud is not new – even the melamine in milk, which was unexpected at the time, had a documented history of similar accounts. Scientific papers back in the 1980s had looked at melamine adulteration of fish feed and other high-protein products. It is difficult to predict the next big food fraud scandal, but we can learn a lot from the history of food fraud to put in place measures to help prevent it.
Q8: What should a company do to ensure they do not inadvertently commit food fraud?
Unless you are knowingly perpetrating food fraud within your facility, the goal is to prevent fraudulent ingredients from coming into your facility so that you do not inadvertently commit food fraud with the products leaving your facility. Conducting a vulnerability assessment on your incoming ingredients and implementing effective and targeted supply chain-based controls or mitigation strategies will help you do this.
Q9: Who should be on the food fraud team and what training would you advise?
The most effective food fraud team will multi-disciplinary and bring in different aspects of the business, including food safety, food quality, procurement, and others. Since food fraud prevention involves thinking outside of the traditional “food safety box,” training can be helpful. There are many online training programs available, such as those provided by Michigan State University.
For some local food fraud training courses, we have a dedicated feature showcasing some of the local offerings: view them here
Q10: As this is a relatively new requirement in food safety standards, what advice would you give an auditor when assessing the effectiveness of a food fraud plan? How can they ensure they have sufficient evidence to convince you they have done this adequately?
This is a difficult question as a food fraud plan will look different for each company depending on the nature of their business and supply chain, so sound judgment is required. We will be compiling an article looking at this topic in depth in the weeks ahead... so watch this space.
