THE FIGHT AGAINST FOOD FRAUD

In recent years, there has been many food scandals that have led to reduced consumer confidence against the food industry. This has led to greater relevance in relation to the implementation of a Food Fraud Plan in our companies.

Food Fraud is defined as the term encompassing the intentional substitution, addition, manipulation or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients, food packaging, labeling, product information and / or preparation of false or misleading statements made about a product for an economic gain that could impact to the consumer health.

The objective of many cases of food fraud is to obtain an economic gain, thus causing a high risk in food security. The losses can be numerous to the same manufacturers, due to the economic impact that can cause a product recovery from the market, a loss of sales, the cost of recovering their reputation, etc., but the consumer is also important. The risks by the consumer can be of three types:

• Direct Food Safety Risks: causes an immediate health risk to the consumer (e.g. addition of melamine in milk powder that caused food poisoning).
• Indirect Food Safety Risk: causes a health risk to the consumer in a long-term exposure (e.g. use of recycled paper to enter in food contact).

• Risk of Technical Food Fraud: does not imply a direct or indirect risk to food safety but indicates that the traceability of said product can not be guaranteed (eg, misrepesentation of country-of-origin information of packaging material).

Food Fraud is different from Food Defense in that the motivation of this in not economic gain, but due to an ideological motivation to cause harm to the consumer.

What is a Food Fraud Prevention Plan?

To implement a Food Fraud prevention plan, these steps must be followed:

1. Establish a multidisciplinary mitigation team.
2. Conduct an evaluation of the product fraud vulnerability.
   • Identification of adulteration potentials.
   • Vulnerability analysis.
   • Application of control measures against product fraud.
3. Verification of effectiveness control measures against product fraud.

With the implementation of a Food Fraud prevention plan, the company can obtain economic benefits, improve competitiveness and ensure that the products placed on the market are safe for the consumer.

How do I apply and manage this plan to my company?

RepaQ has a high experience in the packaging and food sector, and can offer you the necessary support to implement Food Fraud in your company.