Differences in fraud vulnerability in various food supply chains and their tiers

Abstract

Food fraud results from the interaction of motivated offenders with opportunities, and lack of control measures. The vulnerability to food fraud varies across chain actors (tiers) though, but insights on prime fraud drivers and enablers, as well as chain areas where vulnerabilities might exist are lacking. In the current study the fish, meat, milk, olive oil, organic bananas, and spice supply chains were assessed for their fraud vulnerabilities. The differences and similarities in vulnerabilities across the supply chains, as well as between groups of chain actors were evaluated using the SSAFE food fraud vulnerability assessment tool. Multiple correspondence analysis and agglomerative hierarchical clustering were applied for exploratory data analysis, and differences between chains and actors were assessed by analysis of variance and post-hoc tests. Thirteen fraud factors related to opportunities and motivations scored high across all supply chains indicating their importance as fraud drivers and enablers. Control measures varied considerably across supply chains and actor groups, with technical (hard) controls generally being more in place than managerial (soft) controls. Approximately half of the fraud factors were impacted by the type of commodity chain, and one out of seven of the fraud factors by the actor group. From the current sample group overall fraud vulnerability appeared highest for the spice chain, which was followed by the olive oil, meat, fish, milk and organic banana chains. Among the actor groups, the wholesale/traders group appeared most vulnerable, followed by retailers and processors. The current results provide new insights in the fraud factors determining fraud vulnerability in various supply chains, and the (dis)similarities in fraud vulnerability across supply chains and actor groups which helps to combat future food fraud.