One of our Partners, Tenet, has published an article that explores the threat caused by Supply Chain Fraud, how it manifests and what you can do to protect your business and customers.
Some of the most common fraud threats that supply chains are open to are:
Read the article here.
The EC Knowledge Centre for Food Fraud and Quality (the Joint Research Centre, “JRC”) have published their monthly collation of global food fraud media reports for February 2024.
Thanks, as always, for FAN member Bruno Sechet for formatting these into this infographic, which you can download here. If you would like to join the JRCs mailing list to sign up for these monthly summaries then the link is here. You can also follow Bruno's LinkedIn feed here.
Other interesting articles signposted by the JRC:
We are delighted to be collaborating with the Global Alliance (GA) on Food Crime to bring a dedicated page for the GA on our website.
The GA is a coalition of international leaders who have agreed to work together on the prevention, detection and disruption of food crime. The GA initially agreed to have a small number of founder participants, consisting of food regulatory and enforcement organisations from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, but are looking to involve any country that is willing and able to contribute to the aims and objectives of the GA moving forward.
The current Chair of the GA is Ron McNaughton, Head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit at Food Standards Scotland, who said “Its fantastic that the Global Alliance now has a page on the Food Authenticity Network’s website. This gives us the ability to share information on the work of the GA in one place. This will be particularly important in terms of outlining progress towards achieving our strategic objectives, so many thanks to the Network for providing this great opportunity.”
Visit the Global Alliance page for more information and updates.
We are delighted to present our Annual Summary, which highlights key activities and outputs from 2023.
It contains news about our membership and users of the website, as well as the activities of the Team at UK and international events. Information of new government reports and new content added to the website is presented, as well information of the categories of open access resources available on the website with a spotlight on our popular food fraud prevention pages.
The types of food authenticity Centres of Expertise are shown, as is the Food Chain ID data for 2023, which gives the foods most reported as being fraudulent.
Our 2023 awards and surveys are also highlighted as well as our funding Partners, without whom we would not be able to operate the Food Authenticity Network as an open access resource for all stakeholders globally.
Download your copy here and please share with your colleagues.
A new report has been published by the UK Food Standards Agency on a review of methods for the analysis of culinary herbs and spices for authenticity.
Herbs and spices are a commodity group that consistently appear in the top ten commodities most reported as being adulterated. Due to the large variety of products that fall within the category of herbs and spices, complex global supply chains and commercial production processes, methods for verifying their authenticity / detecting fraud are not straight forward.
The main aim of this project was to identify methods for the analysis of culinary herbs and spices, in their dehydrated or dried form, for authenticity with a focus on detecting deliberate adulteration.
Authenticity testing of herbs and spices is a complex matter, and the analytical approaches used for the authenticity testing of herbs and spices are very much dependent on stakeholder needs and the purpose of testing. All methods and technologies used for the authenticity testing of herbs and spices suffer from the same issues of the lack of reliable reference samples, and difficulty of accessing proprietary validated datasets, on which to validate the methods to demonstrate their fitness for purpose.
Read the full report and recommendations here. The report has also been added to the Research Reports section of this website.
A Toolkit to Support Weight of Evidence Approaches for Food Authenticity Investigations has been published by Defra.
Applying a weight of evidence approach for food authenticity investigation is relevant in situations where screening tests which do not give a definitive answer are used, for example with non-targeted fingerprinting approaches for food authenticity testing which rely on probability-based interpretation of the data. In these situations, gathering and assessing the weight of evidence can help in drawing a conclusion on the authenticity of a sample/product.
This document provides a structured outline on how to approach a weight of evidence assessment to verify the authenticity of food and drink samples where there is no single confirmatory test result available.
It has been developed by a sub-group of Defra’s Authenticity Methods Working Group (AMWG), drawing on analytical testing, enforcement, and food industry expertise.
Access the Weight of Evidence Toolkit. This report has also been added to the 'Guides' tab of the 'Tools_Guides_reports' part of our Food Fraud Prevention section.
The European Parliament and Council agreed to review and strengthen the existing marketing standards applicable to honey, fruit juices, jams and milk. The so-called Breakfast Directives lay down common rules on the composition, sales names, labelling and presentation of these products to ensure their free movement within the internal market and help consumers make informed choices.
The revised Directives agreed upon by the co-legislators will introduce the following changes:
The political agreement reached by the European Parliament, Council and Commission is now subject to formal approval by the co-legislators. From entry into force 20 days after publication of the final text, Member States will have 18 months to transpose the new provisions into national law and 6 more months before it applies throughout the European Union.
Read full press release.
The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has published guidance on the selection and use of DNA extraction methods.
Extracting DNA of suitable quality and quantity from a test sample is a fundamental upstream step that underpins the confidence in a number of downstream analytical molecular biology based methods (e.g., qPCR. dPCR, NGS, etc.,).
This official guidance document provides advice on the selection and use of fit for purpose DNA extraction methods. Whilst this guidance uses the example of DNA extraction in the context of official controls for the analysis of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the principles it describes are universally applicable to all DNA based methods including those for food authenticity.
Advice is provided on the selection of different protocols and decision support systems, and guidance provided on validation approaches and the assessment of DNA quality parameters, further illustrated with practical examples/solutions based on extensive collective experiences.
Access guidance: DOI: 10.2760/76162 (online)
This guidance has also been added to the Quality section of this website.
A scientific paper entitled ”Authenticity Assessment of Ground Black Pepper by Combining Headspace Gas-Chromatography Ion Mobility Spectrometry and Machine Learning” has now been published in Food Research International (Elsevier journal)
The study assessed a broad variety of authentic samples originating from eight countries and three continents. The method uses head-space gas-chromtaography ion mobility spectrometry (HS-HC-IMS), combined with machine learning. It requires no sample preparation and is rapid. In this proof-of-concept study, the methos successfully classified samples with an accuracy of >90% with a 95% level of confidence.
Access the paper for free until the end of March 2024.
Photo by Anas Alhajj on Unsplash
The European Parliament Research Service has published briefing document on geographical indications for wine, spirit drinks and agricultural products.
The note states that the Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement on the Commission's proposal for a regulation on geographical indications for wine, spirit drinks and agricultural products. The text still has to be formally adopted by the Parliament and Council.
The agreed text would bring together in a single legal document the provisions setting out the procedures for registering geographical indications (GIs) for wine, spirit drinks and agricultural products that are currently spread over three regulations. It would increase the powers and responsibilities of producer groups, lay down rules on sustainability practices, clarify rules on the use of GI products as ingredients, and improve the protection of GI products online.
Access the briefing note.
The Food Integrity Unit of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), is looking for laboratories with expertise in beeswax analyses, interested in participating in a method validation study by inter-laboratory comparison according to ISO 5725-2.
The goal is to evaluate repeatability and reproducibility of the gas chromatography based analytical method for quantifying paraffin n-alkanes respectively stearin/stearic acid in beeswax with the aim to identify potential adulteration of beeswax.
The participants will receive a set of beeswax test samples, the detailed analytical protocol of the method, and the necessary consumables, free of charge.
If you interested in being part of this important project that will lead to the future standardisation of the method by an international standardisation organization, please contact: Christina.CHRISTIA@ec.europa.eu
As the world's human population grows and climate change impacts food security, digital technologies are becoming increasingly critical for ensuring transparency, resilience, and fairness across the food system.
However, technology and digitalisation are often expensive and can be out of reach for small-scale farms and businesses. So, how can we ensure these technologies are available to all stakeholders, and the associated food is affordable for all consumers?
Here are four ways that technology can increase food system transparency, resilience and fairness (FAO report: Five ways science, technology and innovation are helping to transform the world's agrifood systems):
Read EIT-Food's blog on how can digital technologies increase food system transparency, resilience, and fairness?
FAO, in partnership with Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR), has developed this technical background document to raise awareness of predictive early warning tools that can identify imminent and emerging food safety issues, and contribute to the prevention of food safety emergencies, while supporting the development of capacities for their use.
The report also includes tools (Annex 3) that could be helpful in the prevention of food fraud - we are delighted that our blogs of the JRC's Monthly Food Fraud Reports, presented as visuals (created by our Member Bruno Séchet) gets a mention!.
Access the FAO report here.
In March 2023, Dr Malcolm Burns, Head of the GMO Analytical Unit at the National Measurement Laboratory at LGC presented presented at the International Conference on GMO and New Genomic Techniques on 'Analytical strategies for detection of GMO's and NGT products- status and challenges'. The presentation explored some of the opportunities and challenges for the development of methods for the detection of NGT products.
You can now view Malcolm's presentation here.
Note: all information given in the presentation was correct at the time of the presentation in March 2023.
The UK Government Chemist Annual Review 2022 is published.
The Annual Review is a summary of referee casework, research projects, advice and impact of work carried out by the Government Chemist team during 2022.
Access the review here.
The Analysis for Innovators Programme grants you special access to NML's world-leading experts. Submit your application and collaborate with us to solve your measurement and analytical challenges.
Through the Programme, the NML engages directly with businesses from sectors ranging from healthcare to food and cosmetics, providing access to our state-of-the-art measurement and analytical capabilities, helping them address problems and challenges in innovative ways, and offering bespoke solutions, not available commercially.
Over 90% of businesses completing an Analysis for Innovators Project have reported business growth due to increased productivity, and over 60% saw their competitiveness improved in their markets.
So if you have a food measurement challenge that you'd like help with, find out more about how the NML supports UK companies through the A4I programme here, and information about how to apply here.
Applications close: Wednesday 3 January 2024 @11:00am GMT.
Do you have a question regarding the Programme for the NML? Email a4i-nml@lgcgroup.com
Work conducted by scientists at the National Measurement Laboratory at LGC for the UK Government Chemist, in collaboration with the British Coffee Association, on the effect of roasting on the boron isotopic composition of coffee beans has been published.
Boron (11) isotope values of green and roasted coffee beans from 20 locations worldwide were studied with the aim to investigate boron isotope fractionation during roasting.
The study showed that boron isotopic composition of roasted coffee can be used as a marker of regional differences in coffee origin.
Access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.138128
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Our Secretary, John Points, has written an article for a special edition of the Institute of Food Science and Technology's Journal of Food Science and Technology focussed on 'food safety and authenticity', in which he emphasises the pervasive impact of food fraud, spanning from brand risks to safety risks, advocating rigorous risk assessment, vigilance, and the use of tools like analytical testing to effectively detect and mitigate fraudulent activities in the food industry.
The modern food industry is a rapidly evolving sector with complex supply chains that utilises a wide variety of analytical tools to support food integrity and authenticity.
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)-based approaches represent an emerging analytical technology that is growing within the food sector, providing the potential to not only screen and test input materials, but also the production process and end products.
This questionnaire is part of a UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funded project tasked with reviewing the application of NGS technology to food authenticity testing and supporting harmonisation and the development of standards for NGS approaches applicable to the verification of food authenticity. The questionnaire is targeted at individuals involved in the food and associated diagnostics sectors, including technology developers, suppliers and official controls.
Your participation in this questionnaire will directly help inform the direction of the project and contribute to guidance within the sector.
Please do not provide any information that could be used to identify you. Thank you for participating in our questionnaire which should only take around 15 minutes to complete. Your feedback is important.
Access questionnaire.
UK National Measurement Laboratory at LGC
The United Kingdom Food Security Report (UKFSR) sets out an analysis of statistical data relating to food security by examining past, current, and predicted relevant trends to present the best available understanding of food security.
The UK Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) published the first UKFSR on 16 December 2021 and is now planning the production of the next UKFSR, which will be published in the second half of 2024.
Defra is currently seeking users' views on the content of the 2024 UKFSR.
As with the 2021 report, the next report will cover 5 themes:
Please help Defra to improve the next report by answering a few short questions on these themes, and the report as a whole, by 15 December 2023: Access Defra questionnaire.
Thank you!
