How to tackle food fraud in official food control authorities in Germany

Aline Wisniewski,Anja Buschulte

doi:10.1007/s00003-019-01228-2

Aline Wisniewski, Anja Buschulte

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00003-019-01228-2

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Abstract

Food Fraud has been a problem for as long as food trade exists in human history. Recent food fraud scandals have attracted particular attention of the public and authorities. The fight against food fraud is still hampered by a lack of a clear definition stating which facts constitute a legal case of food fraud. Against this background, an online survey was conducted in the official food control authorities of the German federal states to obtain an overview of the facts considered as food fraud and to identify factors which, according to the respondents, could be used for the early detection of food fraud. The study was carried out in autumn 2017 with the online software tool Sosci Survey. The data collected was analysed descriptively using Microsoft Excel. The following facts are classified as food fraud by almost all participants: substitution of substances/liquids, imitation of foodstuff, omission of substances/liquids and the concealment of inferior quality of a product. The origin of the foodstuff is considered to be the most important factor in predicting possible food fraud, followed by the product category and price fluctuations. The results of this study show similarities and differences in the understanding of the term food fraud in the official institutions of Germany. Therefore they might be used for the development of a legal definition, which eliminates the identified ambiguities and is a prerequisite for a stringent and congruent fight against food fraud. The identified factors for predicting possible cases of food fraud could be used to develop an early warning system and could thus be part of an overall prevention concept.

Highlights

A major problem in the fight against food fraud (FF) is that neither in Germany (DE) nor in the European Union (EU) a legal definition of the term FF exists
83% of the participants are employed in a veterinary department, 4% in a supreme state authority, 2% in a border inspection post (BIP) and 11% in another official institution
The sale of rotten goods or the addition of rotten substances, the use of unauthorised genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food and the use of contaminated additives as well as the falsification of the bestbefore date should be counted as FF

Summary

Introduction

A major problem in the fight against food fraud (FF) is that neither in Germany (DE) nor in the European Union (EU) a legal definition of the term FF exists. Rather, it is a collective term defined in different ways and on different levels of detail depending on the point of view of the observer (Spink et al 2013a). It is a collective term defined in different ways and on different levels of detail depending on the point of view of the observer (Spink et al 2013a) One reason for these inconsistent definitions are the different types of FF which are not yet uniformly classified. The fraud incidents were of very different nature and included the addition of chemical additives to simulate a given parameter (e.g. the addition of melamine to milk products that have been diluted with water to simulate a certain protein content), the substitution of substances or liquids (substitution of beef by horsemeat in lasagne; other examples are the addition of water to fish or the substitution of oil of lower quality to extra virgin olive oil), the concealment of inferior quality of food

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