Tag Archives: food fraud

Widespread food fraud in UK county

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Widespread contraventions of food labelling law were found in a nine-month programme of meat product testing carried out by Leicester City Council, but no food safety concerns were raised.

The council launched the city-wide programme in May last year in response to the horsemeat scandal, when lamb burgers labelled as halal, and supplied to a city primary food.fraud.adulterationschool, were found to contain pork DNA.

One-hundred-and-five meat products were tested from local businesses. Of these, 47 samples were found to contain meat from species other than that declared, and at levels regarded as gross contamination, said the council.

Last month a West Yorkshire public laboratory published findings from a six-month study, showing that 38% of food products, including meat, were mislabelled or had compositional faults.

Look harder, there’s more fraud; fake-food scandal revealed as UK tests show third of products mislabeled

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Consumers are being sold food including mozzarella that is less than half real cheese, ham on pizzas that is either poultry or “meat emulsion”, and frozen prawns that are 50% water, according to tests by a public laboratory.

The checks on hundreds of food samples, which were taken in West Yorkshire, revealed that more than a third were not what they claimed to be, or were mislabelled in some way. food_fraud_adulterationTheir results have been shared with the Guardian.

Testers also discovered beef mince adulterated with pork or poultry, and even a herbal slimming tea that was neither herb nor tea but glucose powder laced with a withdrawn prescription drug for obesity at 13 times the normal dose.

A third of fruit juices sampled were not what they claimed or had labelling errors. Two contained additives that are not permitted in the EU, including brominated vegetable oil, which is designed for use in flame retardants and linked to behavioural problems in rats at high doses.

Experts said they fear the alarming findings from 38% of 900 sample tests by West Yorkshire councils were representative of the picture nationally, with the public at increasing risk as budgets to detect fake or mislabelled foods plummet.

Counterfeit vodka sold by small shops remains a major problem, with several samples not meeting the percentage of alcohol laid down for the spirit. In one case, tests revealed that the “vodka” had been made not from alcohol derived from agricultural produce, as required, but from isopropanol, used in antifreeze and as an industrial solvent.

Samples were collected both as part of general surveillance of all foods and as part of a programme targeted at categories of foodstuffs where cutting corners is considered more food-fraudlikely.

West Yorkshire’s public analyst, Dr Duncan Campbell, said of the findings: “We are routinely finding problems with more than a third of samples, which is disturbing at a time when the budget for food standards inspection and analysis is being cut.”

Ham, which should be made from the legs of pigs, was regularly made from poultry meat instead: the preservatives and brining process add a pink colour that makes it hard to detect except by laboratory analysis.

Meat emulsion – a mixture in which meat is finely ground along with additives so that fat can be dispersed through it – had also been used in some kinds of ham, as had mechanically separated meat, a slurry produced by removing scraps of meat from bones, which acts as a cheap filler although its use is not permitted in ham.

Horsemeat scandal: probe failure by authorities dates back to 1998

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British authorities were, according to The Guardian, aware that tonnes of condemned horsemeat was being imported for use by suspected fraudsters as long ago as 1998 but failed to investigate the criminal networks involved fully for lack of resources.

Over 15 years ago, environmental health officers from Rotherham council investigating a conspiracy in which hundreds of tonnes of unfit poultry meat was recycled in to the human food chain, discovered horse.office.feb.13that regular shipments of around 20 tonnes each of frozen “ponymeat” from China had been arriving at UK ports for months.

The horsemeat consignments had been condemned for the human food chain by the Chinese authorities but could have been used legally to make petfood, according to a source involved with enforcement. However a paper trail showed the horsemeat going in to cold stores licenced for the human food chain rather than for petfood and then disappearing in a separate suspected fraud, the source said.

A spokesperson for Rotherham council confirmed that at the time it had investigated “significant concerns relating to a wide range of food stuffs, including poultry, ‘ponymeat’, red meats, fish and frozen vegetables”. Convictions were secured over the poultry, but no one was charged in the other suspected cases.

The chain of brokers and cold stores through which the horsemeat was passing overlapped with a criminal chain in which condemned poultry meat that was green with slime and covered with faeces was being cleaned up with chemicals, repacked and relabelled with faked official health marks and then moved in to the human food chain, the source said. The fraudulently mislabelled chicken and turkey was sold across the UK to food manufacturers, schools and retailers including the discount supermarkets Netto and Kwik Save.

FSA and police investigations into the 2013 horsemeat scandal have uncovered a similar pattern, in which imported horsemeat passing through a system of brokers and cold stores appears to have been repacked and relabelled with faked official health marks as beef, the Guardian has been told, although they have not proved where exactly the fraud of mislabelling took place.

Food fraud: If verification is now standard, why isn’t it marketed at retail so consumers know?

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Almost a year later, can we be confident that the beef burger is a horse-free foodstuff, asks Alison Healy in The Irish Times.

Every week seems to bring new scares: if it’s not fox masquerading as donkey meat in China, it’s the discovery of donkey, water buffalo and goat in sausages and burgers in o-HORSE-MEAT-COSTUME-570South Africa.

The chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Alan Reilly, believes burgers and processed-meat products have never been safer, because of the range of tests and regulations that have been introduced in response to the scandal.

“The industry will never be caught on the hop again, like it was with horse meat,” he says. Laboratory certification has become standard for anyone selling or buying meat, and testing the authenticity of meat products is the industry norm now. “So from a consumer perspective, that’s a hugely positive step.”

Both ABP and Tesco Ireland point to a range of tests and standards they have introduced to ensure that a meat-contamination scandal cannot happen again. ABP says it believes it has the most comprehensive testing regime of any European meat processor, including DNA testing of cattle and a strict supplier-approval process.

Tesco Ireland says it now has a world-class traceability and DNA-testing system across its food products. “The initial focus of our testing programme was on products containing beef, but things have evolved during the course of the year to include pork, lamb, chicken, fish and processed meats,” a spokesman says.

Tesco is also looking at ways of using tests to help identify the likely origin of some products. “For example, it can be very difficult to identify the provenance of products such horse-hamburgeras olive oil, rice or coffee by sight, smell and taste alone. Using our authenticity testing, which looks closely at the chemical make-up of a product, we can verify that what is in the pack is exactly what it says on the label.”

That’s all nice, but consumers have heard all this before, only to be eventually disappointed.. Over time, or bad economics, or both, someone will cut corners. The best producers should be marketing the authenticity of their products and make the testing to validate those claims available for public review.

Good on ya, Alan: horsemeat in food chain ‘for three years’

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Horsemeat in the food chain could have been passed off as beef for three years, the country’s food safety watchdog has said.

Alan Reilly of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland said he suspects the rogue product may have been in beef for years.

The first definitive test showing horsemeat contamination only came in April last year, but Prof Reilly insisted the problem was right under the noses of horse.meat.09Europe’s food safety watchdogs.

Prof Reilly said the authority had been using DNA testing on meat since 2005, but decided seven years later to see if people were “cheating” by passing off horsemeat for more expensive cuts.

He admitted he had “lost some sleep” after one burger was found to contain 29% horsemeat.

The FSAI boss revealed the decision to go public on the fraud was very difficult.

He added: “The Irish media attacked us for going public, but what we uncovered was a massive international fraud.”

Prof Reilly said the scandal has removed trust from buyers but he cannot see the situation happening again.

He added: “The industry norm now is to buy nothing on trust and to test it. So I couldn’t see it happening again.”

The FSAI tested several blocks of frozen meat used for burgers.

Prof Reilly said in one case a block labelled as Polish beef trim contained “horsemeat with an Irish stamp and a micro-chip for a Polish horse.”

Kangeroos in South Africa? Bitlong meat strips contain meat from anything

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I don’t know what bitlong is, but it’s apparently popular in South Africa and apparently it’s made from whatever meat is available.

Using DNA analysis on biltong, researchers found, according to the N.Y Times,  horse meat labeled as springbok, the native gazelle; giraffe meat biltong.mar.13labeled as the African antelope, kudu; and in an inexplicable case, kangaroo labeled as ostrich.

“For me the saddest finding was to find the Cape mountain zebra, an endangered species, being sold as biltong,” said Maria Eugenia D’Amato, a geneticist at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and one of the authors of the study, in the journal Investigative Genetics.

From a total of 146 samples of biltong, sausage and minced meat, more than a hundred pieces of meat were mislabeled.

Beef was correctly labeled in all of the samples.

“Our biggest surprise was to find kangaroo in the samples,” Dr. D’Amato said. “This isn’t found anywhere on the continent, and it must have been imported.”

A horse is a horse of course, except when it isn’t

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The horse meat scandal in Europe keeps getting bigger but, according to Elizabeth Weise of USA Today, U.S. officials say it’s unlikely there’s any horse meat hidden in U.S. meat products.

Or, like products from Iceland’s high-end natural food company Gaedakokkar, horse.laughthere’s no meat at all in its meat pies.

Genetic tests have found ground horse meat in beef in Ireland, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic. On Friday Taco Bell outlets in Britain found traces of the meat in what was supposed to be 100% beef. The company has removed all beef products from its menu in the United Kingdom.

There is no link between Taco Bell suppliers in Europe and the United States, the company said.

Canada is the largest exporter of horsemeat to Europe, according to the Humane Society of Canada.

Two companies are currently trying to open horse slaughter plants in the United States, on in Missouri and one in New Mexico. USDA is reviewing their applications.

It’s “doubtful” any dangerous pathogens were in the horse meat Europeans have inadvertently eaten, said Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.

“It has been found in meals and products that are highly processed—the bad bugs would be cooked away.” It’s the public’s trust that’s been broken “and since almost all food safety at retail is faith-based, the faith has been violated.”

 

I’ll have snapper, scallops, bay bugs and tuna; stories about mislabeled fish make me want authentic

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As Europeans and others try to decide if that burger or frozen lasagna is made with horsemeat, rampant food fraud has once again been snapper.feb.13confirmed in U.S. seafood.

So I had to have fish for dinner.

A two-year investigation of seafood by the world’s largest ocean conservation group, Oceana, found a fillet red snapper could be cheap tilapia; a pricey wild-caught salmon steak from Alaska could be farmed Atlantic salmon from Chile; sushi in a restaurant could be anything.

Elizabeth Weise of USA Today reports Oceana’s volunteers collected fish samples at 674 supermarkets, restaurants and sushi counters in 21 states and found several examples of fish fraud. For instance, 87% of the snapper samples were not snapper. White tuna was mislabeled 59% of the time. Between one-third and one-fifth of the halibut, grouper, cod and Chilean sea bass tested were mislabeled.

“Honestly, it was a surprise,” says Beth Lowell, who coordinated the survey for Oceana. “Everywhere we looked for seafood fraud, we found tuna.feb.13,jpgit. It’s consistent around the country.”

At sushi restaurants, 74% had at least one sample come back mislabeled. At restaurants, 38% had at least one problem sample; in grocery stores, 18% did.

Oceana wasn’t able to determine whether the mislabeling occurred at the supplier, distributor or retailer. Seafood goes through many hands, so it’s easy for someone to substitute it, partly because 84% of the seafood eaten in the United States is imported, according to Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood industry trade group.

The good news for consumers is that Oceana found mislabeling only in the highest-priced seafood. The five most commonly eaten seafood types in the United States are shrimp, canned tuna, salmon, pollock (used in fish sticks) and tilapia, Gibbons says. All are low-cost and not often substituted.

Oceana’s Lowell offers this advice for consumers:

– Ask questions at the restaurant or market about where the fish comes from.

– When possible, buy a whole fish. Fish look different even when their fillets look similar. ​

Ocenana’s Lowell told the N.Y. Times, “Even a relatively educated consumer couldn’t look at a whole fish and say, ‘I’m sure that’s a red snapper and not lane snapper.’ ”

Reading about all this fish made me hunger for the real thing, or at least some form of verification, so off we went off to our local fish monger.

For lunch we had a chunk of Sashimi grade Yellowfin Tuna. How did I know it was what it proclaimed to be? Fishmonger showed me the rest fish.bbq.feb.13of the fish out back.

For dinner we had some kind of snapper fished off New Zealand, along with scallops and bay bugs (and a pizza for Sorenne).

We’re fortunate to live close to such great seafood, but as fishmonger told me, mislabeling is rampant in Australia as well.

I’m a landlubber and wouldn’t know the difference, but DNA testing is becoming increasingly available and simple. Those retailers that are selling the real deal – and there’s a premium involved – should be able to collect valid data and use that to market their wares. Trust and faith ain’t worth much. Data is.

Audits inspections never enough; arrests in horse fraud

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As UK police made arrests at the two food plants raided jointly with the Food Standards Agency on Tues., the uber-witty Economist says “big retailers and producers have brands to protect, so they are vigilant.”

Hilarious.

An audit by Tesco of its suppliers “is one of the most feared and respected things in the industry,” says Michael Walker, a food-safety consultant. “How come it didn’t pick this up?”

Because audits and inspections are never enough.

Food fraud: mutton isn’t lamb: abattoir convicted of large-scale lamb substitution

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I was never a fan of lamb. But, different geography means embracing different cuisines, so I’ve gotten reasonably good at preparing lamb in Australia.

This puts me in good with faux Frenchy Amy, who loves lamb. So after the floods, power outages and cyclone remnants, there were some lamb.crust.febbargains to be had at the shops. I got a rack roast of lamb, and will be preparing a duck for Super Bowl lunch on Monday (do the time math).

The lamb we had tonight was marinated in a slop of lime, garlic, olive oil, pepper, and fresh mint and rosemary from my concrete back yard, roasted with tomatoes, squash and onion to a thermometer-verified temperature of 155F that rose to 160F (Amy doesn’t like it too undercooked).

I think it was lamb.

The New South Wales Food Authority reports today that following a lengthy and contested hearing, Tolsat Pty Ltd was convicted and fined $66,000 on December 19, 2012, in the NSW Chief Industrial Magistrates Court for large scale lamb substitution.

NSW Food Authority CEO, Polly Bennett welcomed the outcome of the court case for the message it sends about lamb substitution.

“Consumers rightly expect meat labels to be correct and not a substituted product,” Ms Bennett said.

“Tolsat was prosecuted for lamb substitution offences and non-compliance with the law over a period between early October 2007 and mid-January 2008. Meat substitution laws are in place in NSW for a reason; flouting them also puts other businesses at a disadvantage for doing the right thing.

“Lamb is a premium commodity and one of the most recognized brands in Australia. Consumers have a right to get what they pay for. That is why there are laws in place to distinguish young lamb meat, which is more expensive, from older hogget or mutton”

Ms Bennett said the Tolsat investigation stemmed from a state-wide audit of lamb identification procedures in 2008 in conjunction with complaints from industry and a Federal Senate inquiry into meat marketing at that time.

“During an audit of Tolsat’s operations, a NSW Food Authority inspector specifically looked at the branding of carcasses. The officer noticed problems with the dentition checks the abattoir was conducting when it classified carcasses as lamb. This prompted further investigation by the Authority.”