Module 1, Lesson 1: Food fraud. Lesson transcript

Transcription

1 Module 1, Lesson 1: Food fraud Lesson transcript

2 Frame 1 Welcome to your food fraud and vulnerability assessment training course. This training course is split into 3 modules. And then; module 3, takes you through completion of the vulnerability assessment itself. Module 1, provides a background to food fraud, the requirements, and how to prepare for your assessment. Module 2, explains how you can scope out which threats you should include in your vulnerability assessment, to make sure you keep it focused. There is a quiz at the end of module 1 and you will need to complete this in order to move onto module 2. There is also a quiz at the end of module 3. If you successfully complete this quiz, you ll receive a certificate for this course. This is module 1, which is your introduction to food fraud and vulnerability. There are 3 lessons in this module. Lesson 1, provides an overview to food fraud. Lesson 2 covers the GFSI recognized standard and what it expects from you, and then, lesson 3 looks at what information you need to gather to carry out your vulnerability assessment and setting up your vulnerability team. So, let s get started with lesson 1, food fraud. Frame 2 In this lesson, we re going to look at food fraud, what it is and what the consequences of food fraud can be. What is meant by a threat, what vulnerability is, and then, what the terms TACCP and VACCP mean. Frame 3 So, let s look at food fraud first.

3 Notes

4 Frame 4 When we think of food fraud, the first thing that springs to mind is the horsemeat scandal, or horse-gate as it was known in the food industry. One of the brands that was implicated in the horse meat scandal was Findus, the FSA found that the Findus beef lasagne contained up to 100% horsemeat. You ll probably have seen some of these jokes - which quickly came out at the time, but Findus won t have found them comical. In fact; you can no longer purchase a Findus lasagne, as it had such a devastating effect on the brand. Frame 5 Given the horsemeat scandal, you may think that food fraud is a new thing, but it s actually been around for a long time. In the Victorian times, around the 1870s, bakers in the UK began to adulterate the bread they were making, by adding bulking ingredients to the flour, to make it go further. They added things like chalk, plaster of paris and even alum. Alum is an aluminum based compound, which caused bowel problems such as constipation and diarrhea and was fatal in small children. This picture was drawn to represent the adulteration of bread, and they even make a joke of the fact that the baker, knows which side his bread is buttered because he s making more money for each loaf he sells.

5 Notes

6 Frame 6 The BRC Global Standard for Food Safety provides us with a definition of food fraud. The BRC state that food fraud is the fraudulent and intentional substitution, dilution or addition to a product or raw material, or misrepresentation of the product or material, for the purposes of financial gain, by increasing the apparent value of the product or reducing the cost of its production. Now, that s a really long definition and it covers a lot! And, some of the words used are important to the topic of food fraud, so we need to understand them a bit more. Let s break down the definition: The term fraudulent means that the act is dishonest, or the person who has carried it out, is trying to hide it. The act is carried out intentionally, meaning that it s done on purpose, it s not done by mistake. The term substitution is where one ingredient is replaced with another, or even the whole product is replaced with something else. The terms; dilution and addition covers fraud where another material is added to dilute the product, which therefore makes it go further. This is what the bakers were doing in the Victorian times to make the flour go further. Misrepresentation is where the fraudsters pretend that the ingredient or product is something that it s not. They do this for financial gain, or in other words to make money. They do this because of the apparent value of the product, which means the product looks like it s worth more than it actually is. Or because they have reduced the cost of production; it s cheaper to make and they can still sell it at the same price, meaning they make more money.

7 Notes

8 Frame 7 There are so many cases of food fraud that we could look at, but here are a few common examples. Olive oil is known to be diluted with other cheaper oils. Recent crop issues in Italy have compounded this issue, by reducing the amount of available olives. This then increases the cost of the olives, causing some producers to look for alternative ways to reduce their ingredient costs. Ingredients which have provenance are often targeted by fraudsters, because they can charge more for them if they can say they are from a particular country or region. Such as Madagascan vanilla. When fish has been filleted, it s difficult to tell what the original fish was. Professor Chris Elliott has stated that fish fraud is one of the main current issues we face; with many tests proving that the fish in the pack, is not actually the type specified on the label. Some types of fish; such as tuna also state on the label how the fish was caught, such as line or pole caught. This means that the fish is from a sustainable source, which means it s worth more money. Fraudsters have also been known to label net caught fish; which is not from a sustainable source, with line caught or pole caught labelling. When meat is butchered it makes it much more difficult to tell what the species it is. Clearly minced beef is a risk; as we found from the horsemeat scandal, but other types of meat are also at risk. For example; how do you know diced chicken is not in fact, diced turkey? Adulterated herbs and spices have hit the news recently. In 2015 cumin was thought to contain ground almond shells. It later turned out that it wasn t a food fraud issue. The cumin had been grown in the same area as the mahaleb plant; which is from the same family as the almond, but known not to be allergenic. Growing the mahaleb near the cumin plants caused the cross-contamination; but this was an accident and if you remember, fraud is an intentional act- which is done on purpose. So; in the end, this was found not to be fraud. Other issues have been found to be fraud though; such as the Sudan I issue in 2005, where chilli powder was contaminated with the red dye Sudan I- to make the chilli powder look more premium. There have also been instances where paprika has been found to be diluted using ground nut shells, which obviously poses an allergenic risk. Free range egg has been found to be diluted or substituted with non-free range egg. This risk is also a valid one for other free range products such as meat, or dairy. Organic products are also at risk due to the increased value of organic, over the same type of non-organic product. If you would like to hear Professor Chris Elliott talking about the Elliott report; and how the horsemeat scandal happened, he has kindly given us permission to use the YouTube video of his presentation at the Food Authenticity seminar. Chris is a great speaker and really interesting to listen to, so I m sure you ll find it interesting. The video is just over half an hour long and I will also be picking out part of his presentation and including it in Lesson 2 of Module 2; so if you d rather, just watch that element- then you can.

9 Notes

10 Frame 8 We now know what food fraud is and how it occurred before in the past. Let s now look at the consequences of food fraud and how it can impact our customers and our business. Frame 9 The horsemeat scandal didn t pose a food safety issue. Although, in the UK we don t like the thought of eating horsemeat. It is still edible if produced correctly and it s commonly eaten in many parts of the world. It could however have been a totally different story. When horses become sick; they are treated with a drug called bute, which can be carcinogenic- which means it can cause cancer in humans. Although bute was found in the meat during the horsemeat scandal, it was at very low levels and consumers would have had to eat a huge amount of contaminated product to consume anywhere near an unsafe level. This shows though, that it could have had food safety implications. The more recent spice incidents; where nut shells were found in spices, showed that food fraud could have really serious consequences- due to the allergenic risk involved. In 2008 in China, baby milk powder was adulterated with a chemical called melamine. Melamine was added to the milk as it looked like protein when the milk was tested, therefore making the milk worth more. Unfortunately; melamine is extremely poisonous and made more than 300,000 children ill, 6 infants died and around 54,000 were hospitalised. Following the horsemeat scandal further meat testing showed that meat products were contaminated with many species of undeclared meats, including pork. For certain religious groups, this would pose a major problem. This shows that even food fraud that doesn t cause a food safety problem, can still be an issue and pose a problem to the consumer and therefore; the business.

11 Notes

12 Frame 10 We ve talked about the impact that food fraud can have on the consumer. The consumer may be upset if they receive a product that is not what they expect, such as tuna which is net caught rather than line caught. Consumers may be even repulsed; if they find they have eaten something that does not meet their beliefs, such as the Muslim community finding out they had eaten pork. Or; in the worst case, food fraud can result in harm- which was shown by the baby milk incident in China. Each of these types of food fraud will have an impact, on the business that has produced that product. As we ve mentioned previously the Findus brand was badly damaged following the horsemeat scandal. It also had a major impact on consumer trust and confidence, as sales of beef dropped overall that year. Frame 11 A report produced by the Consumer Council in July 2013; following the horsemeat scandal, showed that there had been a 33% drop in consumer confidence. And; a report produced by Harris Interactive on the behalf of the FSA in February 2013, showed that 73% of consumers are less confident in the safety of processed meat.

13 Notes

14 Frame 12 It s easy to think, that food fraud won t happen to us. But, just imagine for a moment what would the impact be on your business if the worst was to happen. To do this, try out the Daily Mail test. Imagine an undercover reporter for the Daily Mail has been working at one of your supplier s sites and has found out they have been supplying you with fraudulent ingredients. You come into work one morning and have to drive through a crowd of reporters and cameras at the gate. The Daily Mail has run the newspaper article and named your company. Can you imagine what this would feel like? How would this impact your day? What would your customer s reaction be? What impact would this have on your products? What impact would it have on the business and on the site? Would it survive? It s not a nice thought, is it? It probably sent a shiver up your spine! None of us would want to be in that situation. We need to learn from the previous food fraud experiences and protect our customers and our businesses from it having an impact on us. This training course is going to help you do just that. Frame 13 There are a number of terms that are used with reference to food fraud, so we need to understand what these mean. Let s look at the first one that you ve probably heard of, threats. Frame 14 A threat is a deliberate act to cause harm or loss. Threats can apply to many topics, but for food fraud threats we can link it to BRC s definition for food fraud that we looked at earlier. If you remember; the BRC said that food fraud is intentional, or as our threat definition saysdeliberate. A threat is carried out to cause harm or loss. Fraudsters carry out fraudulent acts to cause loss to us, in order to provide them with a financial gain. This can also cause harm, depending on how they have adulterated the product.

15 Notes

16 Frame 15 Vulnerability, is how exposed the business is to the threat having an impact on the consumer. So this means; if a food fraud threat occurred, how likely or vulnerable are you to this impacting on your business? Frame 16 We now know what food fraud threats are and what we mean by vulnerability. Let s look at some of the other terms that you ve probably heard of, TACCP and VACCP.

17 Notes

18 Frame 17 TACCP and VACCP are relatively new terms and are causing some confusion in the industry. TACCP and VACCP have been taken from the food safety abbreviation of HACCP, which stands for hazard analysis and critical control point. TACCP stands for threat assessment and critical control point. Whereas, VACCP stands for vulnerability assessment and critical control point. There are a couple of immediate problems with these abbreviations: Firstly, we ve just discovered that a threat is an intentional act to cause harm or loss. And, that vulnerability is how vulnerable you are to that threat having an impact on you. So- threats and vulnerabilities are fundamentally linked; you cannot have a threat assessment, without considering vulnerability, or the other way around. You need to do both; as you need to be able to assess how vulnerable you are, to the threat having an impact on the consumer and so on your business. The other problem with these abbreviations is that they both refer to critical control points. However; neither a TACCP or a VACCP system has any critical control points, so the critical control point or CCP element is irrelevant and just adds to the confusion. Because the meanings for these abbreviations are so confused, you will find that people use them interchangeably. Try not to get too hung up about them; it s much easier to not use these terms at all, because after all they don t really make any sense. I would recommend that for food fraud you just stick to the term vulnerability assessment; because then, everyone knows what you re talking about. I won t be using either of these TACCP or VACCP terms within this training course at all, for this very reason. I ll stick to the term vulnerability assessment. Frame 18 That s the end of lesson 1, so let s go over what we ve learnt. Food fraud can compromise your product because: It doesn t meet the claim on pack it s unsafe to eat it isn t to the correct quality. Consumer reaction to food fraud incidents can really damage brands and businesses.

19 Notes

20 Frame 19 Food fraud is an intentional act that is carried out for economic, or financial gain. A threat is a deliberate act to cause harm or loss. Vulnerability is how exposed the business is to the threat having an impact on the consumer. Frame 20 Threat and vulnerability are fundamentally linked. The important question for vulnerability is; how vulnerable you are, to a threat having an impact on your business. Now that you ve finished lesson 1, you can move on to lesson 2.

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