Food adulteration and safety regarding detected market cases and consumer opinions

Peter Zajác,Jozef Čapla,Lucia Benešová,Martina Fikselová,Jozef Golian

doi:10.5219/1345

Abstract

Food fraud is one of the long-standing causes of scandals attracting particular attention for a long time. This study aimed to monitor food fraud in the European Union and to identify the relationships among the countries where the cases were reported, adulterated commodities (seafood, eggs, milk, meat, fish, and their products) and types of fraud. The secondary data were covered by the survey focused on consumer knowledge about fraudulent activities, ingredient substitution, masking of origin, mislabeling, placing on the market of foods not fit for human consumption within Slovak inhabitants. Primary and secondary data were used to achieve this aim. Primary data were obtained from the Food Fraud and Quality Knowledge Center (KCFFQ) and secondary data from the questionnaire survey from 354 respondents. During the period from 2017 to 2019, 163 cases of food fraud were reported, most of which originated from Italy and mainly concerned fish and fish products. Based on primary data and one-way ANOVA statistical tests, we confirmed five hypotheses. There was found no statistical impact of the country on the type of food fraud (p = 0.0067), but the significant effect was determined on which food was adulterated (p = 0.000001). There was no statistical correlation among years and countries where the cases were reported (p = 0.110), but the statistically significant correlation was confirmed among years and commodities (p = 0.0043) and types of fraud reported (p = 0.009). Based on the processed secondary data from the questionnaire, we can conclude some information or public interest in food fraud problems.

Highlights

Adulteration in food has been a concern since the beginning of civilization, as it decreases in the quality of food products and results in several ill effects on health
By evaluating food fraud notifications at Knowledge Centre for Food Fraud and Quality (KCFFQ) during years from 2017 to 2019, we found 163 notifications reported to the KCFFQ system (Table 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, and 1f)
By our results found at the market, we can agree with the statement of Vaqué and Vidreras (2018) that common types of food fraud include the substitution of an ingredient with a similar, cheaper ingredient, the inclusion of undeclared ingredients, adulteration of foods to improve some of their characteristics; non-declaration or false declaration of processes and false declaration of the origin or geographic region of production of a food item

Summary

Introduction

Adulteration in food has been a concern since the beginning of civilization, as it decreases in the quality of food products and results in several ill effects on health. Every European citizen has the right to know how the food he eats is produced, processed, packaged, labelled, and sold The implementation of this integrated Food Safety policy in the EU involves various actions, namely to assure effective control systems and evaluate compliance with EU standards in the food safety and quality, animal health, animal welfare, animal nutrition and plant health sectors within the EU and in non-EU countries in relation to their exports to the EU; to manage international relations with non-EU countries and international organisations concerning food safety, animal health, animal welfare, animal nutrition, and plant health; to manage relations with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and ensure science-based risk management (European Commission, 2020a). The AAC and RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) are working together in synergy to keep the high EU standards for food and feed (EU, 2017; RASFF, 2018)

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Conclusion