Food fraud: Detection, control and strategies

Food fraud represents a significant problem for both food companies and consumers under an economic and sanitary point of view. It is favoured by globalization, economic gain, and low severity of punishments. It includes different kinds of modifications of food such as substitution, addition, dilution, tampering or misrepresentation, false or misleading statements about products. While most fraudulent practices have a negative impact on food quality or consumer perceptions and attitudes, some of them may result in serious health consequences. Many food categories can undergo fraud incidents, i.e., oils and fats, fish and seafood, milk and dairy products, meat and meat products, honey, grain-based foods, fruit juices, wines and alcoholic beverages, organic foods, spices, coffee, tea, and some highly processed foods. Some food safety management procedures, e.g., traceability, supply chain transparency and raw material specification, as well as laboratory techniques able to detect the presence of foreign substances in the commodity or a component diverged from its normal level, represent important strategies to hinder such illegal actions. A broad range of analytical methods to reveal food fraud has been reported: chromatographic techniques, electrophoretic methods, polymerase chain reaction, nuclear magnetic resonance, spectroscopic methods, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. The legislation of food fraud is lacking worldwide as many different definitions exist and no equal approach is applied. So, its prevention and mitigation has become a focus for scientists, regulatory bodies and food producers, in order to guarantee both food safety and quality. This chapter will review the food fraud universe and associated risks, discuss strategy supporting initiatives, and provide a simple, implementable tool to reduce such global problem.