News

 The publication of the EU Food Fraud Network 2019 Annual Report was announced on May 19.The European Commission has given details of the proceduresof the Administrative Assistance and Cooperation System (AAC), and illustrated this with an example of an olive oil investigation. The AAC is an IT system developed and managed by the European Commission. An EU country can contact the competent authorities of another EU country and share information in a secure manner, which can lead to administrative actions, administrative sanctions or judicial proceedings. This exchange of information is an essential element for effective cross border investigation and for strategic assessment of the threat of fraud, which is at the heart of the exchange of information of the Food Fraud Network.

The 2019 Annual Report reveals that the top category of food investigated was fats and oils, with 44 recorded instances of administrative and investigative actions. Read the article here

The European Commission published its 2019 Annual Report of the Food Fraud Network this month. It gives details of the number of requests for assistance and cooperation to investigate food fraud. The highest number of requests came from Germany (76), followed by the Commission (70), and top three groups of food investigated were fats and oils, fish and fish products, and meat and meat products (not including poultry). The report details EU coordinated actions taken in 2019 on illicit practices concerning animal-by-products, tuna and European eels. The EU Food Fraud Network is also engaged in Operation OPSON – a joint Europol/Interpol initiative targeting trafficking in fake and substandard food and beverages. In 2019, 16 Member States and 18 non-EU countries around the world investigated fraudulent organic food, 2,4 Dinitrophenol (DNP) and coffee (Arabica substituted by Robusta coffee) 

Read the full report here

Implementation of the new Official Controls Regulation EU 2017/625 on 14 December 2019 is part of a larger initiative - the Smarter Rules for Safer Food (SRSF) package, which covers animal and plant health regulations as well, and is designed  to modernise, simplify and improve existing health and safety standards for the agri-food chain. In particular, an IT system TRACES New Technology will become the new system for notifying imports from outside the EU. This will be one part of a larger new computerised system for official controls (Integrated Management System for Official Controls, IMSOC), which will integrate TRACES with RASFF, the  EU Food Fraud Network and other IT systems.

  Read the article here, and more details on gov.uk website and EU Commission's website

The EU Food Fraud Network allows Member States (and some other European countries) to work together with the European Commission on reporting cross border cases of food fraud. The number of cases reported to the Network in 2018 rose from 178 in 2017 to 234 in 2018. Germany made up a quarter of the cases 58 up from 52 in 2017, France reported 32 cases, Belgium 23, and UK only 8 cases. The top three foods involved were fish and fish products 45, meat and meat products 421, and oils and fats 29.

Read the article here and the full 2018 EU Food Fraud Network Report