The EU Joint Research Center (JRC) has developed new methods for detecting adulteration in six popular herbs and spices, as well as new reference materials to help identify fraudulent fish products.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has reported the arrest of five men in London after trucks full of allegedly illegal smoked meat carcasses were discovered.
The European Food Fraud Community of Practice (EFF-CoP) is a newly formed research and innovation coalition funded by the EU and coordinated by University College Dublin, the goal of which is to combat food fraud by gathering thousands of diverse stakeholders to share knowledge and collaborate on different activities.
A recent study of salmon sold at Seattle, Washington grocery stores and sushi restaurants found 18 percent of samples to be mislabeled overall, with one-third of “wild-caught” salmon sold at sushi establishments being mislabeled.
As a result of Operation OPSON 2024—an EU-wide coordinated effort targeting fraudulent and counterfeit foods—22,000 tons of food and 850,000 liters of beverages, totaling €91 million, were removed from the market.
Marking the intersection between human decision-making and biosecurity, deliberate attacks present risks like the poisoning or adulteration of food products, or cyberattacks targeting control or process systems. Collectively, "cognitive security"—or protecting the human decision-making process—needs to be a consideration for industry, government, and academia as an element of food security.
The European Commission’s annual report on EU Member States’ official food safety controls in 2022 highlighted successes, areas for improvement, and challenges.
A Codex committee has advanced work on Draft Guidelines on the Prevention and Control of Food Fraud, although consensus on parts of the guideline has not been reached.
In light of a recent investigation that found nearly half of honey imported to the EU is adulterated, UK researchers have demonstrated the promise of two innovative techniques—DNA barcoding and spatial offset Raman Spectroscopy—for detecting sugar adulterants in honey.