Food fraud is your problem, too
Reduced trust threatens all producers, writes Sylvain Charlebois.
Food fraud is everywhere and it seems that many consumers know about it. Food fraud can take many forms, such as adulteration, substituting one ingredient with a much cheaper one, or misrepresentation, including selling a product as organic when it’s not.
Once food fraud is described, a whopping 63 per cent of Canadians are generally concerned about it, according to a recent study from a team at Dalhousie University. Worse still, more than 40 per cent of Canadians feel they have been victim of food fraud already. These are alarming results and can’t be ignored.
Food categories that are more vulnerable to food fraud are fish, seafood, liquids, spices, fruits, vegetables and meat products. Canada has seen its share of cases in recent months. One of the most notable ones is Mucci Farms in Ontario. The company was fined $1.5 million for selling Mexican tomatoes as a product of Canada. The company denies the labelling was intentional and faults its computer system. Other cases have emerged, mostly whistleblowers trying to give food fraud more attention. Cericola Farms, one of the largest poultry processors in the country, was in court over organic mislabelling allegations, but the case has gone quiet since October. The number of cases is adding up. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency received more than 40 complaints in 2016 and many expect that number to increase in 2017.
Some may believe that food fraud is essentially a victimless crime. This is not so; what is at stake is the entire food economy. For any food business to grow and offer high-quality products, it requires consumer trust. If trust is lost, then everything the industry is trying to accomplish will become more challenging. Why would consumers pay more for a product they may deem fraudulent?
The majority of food companies are ethically sound, but you only need a few cases to damage the reputation of an entire industry. But most importantly, the Dalhousie study suggests that consumers with allergies or intolerances are likely to feel more vulnerable when thinking of food fraud. Subsequently, food fraud is as much of a socioeconomic issue as it is a public health one.
Grocers have made recent investments in blockchain technologies that provide a tool to detect counterfeit products. But these measures can only do so much. Companies can’t really report fraudulent companies for fear of retaliation. That’s right: Food companies that denounce fraudulent cases are accused themselves of food fraud. Companies can’t win. Regulators would have to sample-test everything, which would be operationally impractical and, frankly, impossible.
Public regulators have been aware of the issue for quite some time but have struggled to find any solutions to address the issue. A few provinces, including Ontario, have created committees on food integrity to work with industry in finding fraudulent cases. However, their work will take a while before it yields results.
Meanwhile, consumers should shop for food and visit restaurants with extreme prejudice. Consumers should look for consistencies in pricing and quality. If a food product is much cheaper at one outlet, perhaps the deal is too good to be true. Consumers should also ask pointed questions about procurement strategies to retailers and restaurant operators to make the supply chain more transparent to them.
But humans are humans and food fraud has been going on for more than 2,000 years. The first reported cases go back to the Roman empire, when suspicions around adulterated wines and oils were prevalent. Today, however, we have technologies allowing us to detect fraudulent behaviour. Many companies and research centres are developing portable technologies that allow consumers to validate the content of food labels. Imagine testing your own products at home to see if that apple is really from Ontario or that olive oil is really from Italy. The technology exists, but costs are prohibitive. Some of these devices can cost more than $200,000.
One day though, consumers empowered by these technologies will become the most powerful regulators the food industry can imagine. Knowing that consumers can ultimately test the integrity of any product, the entire food supply chain will need to be more disciplined and the rotten apples will need to go, no pun intended.
Over time, humans themselves may not get rid of food fraud, but technology will.