During last month's annual meeting of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) in Portland, Oregon, Mitchell Weinberg, food fraud investigator, addressed the roomful of food safety professionals, "Around the world, food fraud is an epidemic. In every single country where food is produced or grown, food fraud is occurring." Weinberg is a former attorney and the CEO of INSCATECH, an agency that investigates foreign food facilities that supply food to the United States. Joining Weinberg in the panel presentation for food fraud was George Hughes, senior adviser for the Office of Criminal Investigations at the U.S FDA, Andrew Clarke, director of certification and audit for Maple Leaf Foods.
It was discovered that food fraud has become pandemic. The cases have become more alarming over the past years. There has been a rise of fraud cases involving deadly adulterants, fraudulent labelling and an increase in legal prosecution for food fraud. In June, more than 100,000 tons of expired smuggled frozen meat was seized from China. Some of the meats are already decades old. It was also found out that China was producing fake rice out of plastic resin and sweet potato. September last year, walnut crop failures resulted to fraudulent peanut substitution. There has been a huge recall of supermarkets products in October after finding out they were colored with banned dyes.
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