Food fraud is much more prevalent than most American consumers understand, according to professionals speaking at last month’s annual meeting of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) in Portland, Ore., reported Food Safety News. It affects everything from seafood to milk, spices and even food coloring — anything with “even a moderate economic value,” as one speaker put it.
Food fraud is, of course, not a new phenomenon. Since the 13th century, Britain has had laws against diluting wine with water, adding ash to pepper, or padding flour with chalk.
But food fraud trends appear to be worsening these days. Recent years have seen a rise in the number of fraud cases involving deadly adulterants, as well as an increase in fraudulent labeling and legal prosecution for food fraud.
More high-profile food fraud cases than the speakers had time to address have occurred just in the past year.
In June, more than 100,000 tons of smuggled, frozen, expired meat — some of it decades old — was seized in China from groups selling it for consumption. In September, global walnut crop failures lead to an increase in fraudulent peanut substitution. South Africa experienced an enormous recall of supermarket products in October after they were found to be colored with banned dyes.
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