Food Fraud: when it’s too good to be true..
Food Fraud: an old but disturbingly topical subject
A big “eye opener” in terms of food fraud in Europe was the horse meat scandal. The European Union then took some decisions in order to tackle this problem more firmly. Nevertheless, they could not avoid the Fipronil eggs and a new meat scandal (in Belgium). Other cases are bound to follow...
“Food fraud” is a broad concept. It includes various phenomena such as the increasing, reducing, replacing or disguising of ingredients, the mislabelling or counterfeiting of products. An important aspect of food fraud is that it is done consciously and intentionally in order to gain economic profit from it. The consequences are not insignificant: the consumer was misled, confidence was lost, there was unfair competition and reputation damage... Certain foods are more susceptible to fraud, such as olive oil, fish and meat. But other products can also be the subject of fraud.
3 tips!
Food Fraud plan & team
Similar to Food Defense (which also has a deliberate character), it is important that the top of the organisation is involved in the preparation and rollout of the food fraud plan. The team that concretely works out the plan should be multidisciplinary with employees specialised in quality, purchasing, logistics...
Insight into the entire chain
Mapping out the entire chain of raw material suppliers is important because this is where potential fraud mainly happens. Information collection and a good vulnerability analysis are the cornerstones of the approach. Various tools are available.
(Source: "Food fraud", Eveline Notebaert, Q-support - die Keure)
Crisis management as a guiding principle
A good crisis management organisation within the company can also be used as a steppingstone for the food fraud plan (in addition to HACCP, recall, disasters, Food Defense, etc.). This results in a proven, coordinated and unambiguous approach to serious incidents, which is time and management efficient.
Food Security helps its members by:
Choosing “Food fraud” as the subject for our Annual Members' Meeting of 2019. The meeting will take place on 10/10/19 in Grimbergen. Register now!
Launching a contact point for members where their employees can leave an anonymous message about food safety and product integrity.
Helping to set up a good crisis management organisation within your company by training teams through various training courses for crisis teams and first line employees.
Learning points
Crisis communication: develop reflexes, not thick books
Are you really ready to tackle a crisis… or do you just think you are? Many organisations rely on detailed plans, but under pressure these often prove worthless. In a world of...
Extortion and internal threats: is your crisis management up to the task when faced with criminal acts?
The recent extortion case at baby food manufacturer HiPP shows that deliberate contamination is a real risk. However, criminal acts are not among the top priorities for food com...
4% affected, 60% unprepared: time for cyber resilience in the food sector
Food companies are therefore an attractive target, 60% of which do not have a Cyber Incident Response Plan. Moreover, warfare today takes place largely online. How can you bette...