A report (September 2018) of the European Commission states that European Member States face a continuous reduction of staff in inspection and competent authorities. It lead to a situation where "risk-based controls are not applied in all areas where such controls are warranted". In plain English: European consumers are at risk because governments save at the wrong end.
Food fraud includes many aspects like dilution substitution and adulteration. What most definitions do not include is laboratory fraud. And we have seen a few cases recently from major laboratory networks. Do we need to add that and should we collectively refer to these terms more accurately as food crime? Now the Brazilian government has banned involved laboratories from inspection and withdrew their ISO 17025 accreditation.
European Commission publishes Food Fraud AAC report. 178 cases, approximately 15% up from last year! Read which adulterations made the headline.
Food Fraud Reporter and the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) are the key sources at European Commission level to find which cases of food fraud have happened. We looked at both and compared. There seems to be little correlation in several cases.
Robert Bartram interviews Ray Shillito, Chair of ISO TC 34 SC 16, and Bert Popping of FOCOS, to discuss how the development of international standards can support the detection and prevention of economically motivated food adulteration commonly known as food fraud.
FDA published its draft Guidance for Industry: Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration. The document explains to business operators in the food supply chain how to perform vulnerability assessment for the products they produce or trade.
Blockchain should not be deployed by food manufacturers seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. At present, the energy used to perform blockchain operations can power 92% of the country of Greece. And the associated CO2 footprint is massive.
A project led by Karen Everstine of USP gathered experts from around the world, including from US-FDA, Pepsico, Cargill, Hyman, Phelps, & McNamara, Ebert Technical Management, UC Davis and FOCOS - Food Consulting Strategically. The goal was to develop a scheme to group substances used in food adulteration into hazard categories. This will help food manufacturers to set priorities in their vulnerability assessment.
China food fraud regulation and enforcement roundtable. Excellent event and discussions around the new Food safety draft (and its gaps) with representation of CFDA, Walmart, University of California, Los Angeles and US Pharmacopeia.
