Food Defense

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Europol has drawn attention to an increasing trend of food fraudsters relabeling expired goods after operation OPSON Europe—a Europol-INTERPOL joint operation targeting fake and substandard food and beverages—found relabeled expired products at an “unprecedented scale.” Overall, €30 million euros worth of illicit foods weighing 8,000 tons were seized between December 2022 and April 2023. 

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA’s) Food Fraud Working Group has published proposals to strengthen the collective public-private response to food crime. FSA also released new research on the cost of food crime and prevention strategies.

Information sharing is an important function for a Food and Agriculture Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FA-ISAC), which links business and government through "active collaboration,"  thereby strengthening the ability of the food and agriculture industries to withstand challenges and threats.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has identified eight emerging risks, ranging from vitamin D overdoses to increasingly important foodborne pathogens and toxins, in a recently published technical report summarizing the agency’s emerging risk identification activities for 2021.

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) recently published the findings of a targeted surveillance sampling program conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify emerging food safety risks and increase knowledge of the food system.

In 2012, the Consumer Goods Forum’s Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) began the development of a standardized process for assessing and managing food fraud incidents, which has since been adopted across the food industry.

Food Standards Scotland is encouraging food and beverage businesses to sign up for the new Food Crime Risk Profiling Tool, an online tool designed to help increase defense against food fraud.

While ransomware is the most common cyberattack vector for businesses, other cyber threats can be far more dangerous to the food supply system, as discussed in this article.

After finding nearly 70 percent of private-label avocado oils to be rancid or adulterated, researchers have identified key markers to help the retail food industry source authentic product.

Now available is the 120 Day Food and Agriculture Interim Risk Review, which provides a review of critical and emergent risks to the U.S. food and agriculture sector, and will help inform the Federal Risk Mitigation Strategy, as outlined in the National Security Memorandum-16 (NSM-16).