An Analysis of the Severity of Food Safety Hazards in EU Food Fraud Cases

We aim to evaluate the extent to which food fraud incidents cause food safety concerns, using three complementing sources: (1) the publicly available fraud issues as collected by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Union in monthly food fraud reports; (2) academic literature that documents food fraud incidents; and (3) reports of criminal investigations of food fraud in The Netherlands. We studied the nature of these concerns in terms of their severity, types of hazard and investigate this in relation to the type of food fraud as well as the types of product. The findings reveal that approximately one out of three cases of food fraud carries a considerable food safety risk. Within these cases, food laundering-(re)introducing already illegal food into the food chain-was the main type of fraud most predominant and carried most food safety risk. This study demonstrates how food frauds have further-reaching food safety consequences than meets the eye, impacting on the food safety system. Perpetrators, amongst other flaws, seem to consciously ignore food safety risks and regulations. The analytical research community could consider not focusing exclusively on fraudulent food enhancement, but also consider how to extend their contribution to the detection of food laundering.