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Journal ArticleDOI

Economically Motivated Food Fraud and Adulteration in Brazil: Incidents and Alternatives to Minimize Occurrence

TL;DR: The results of this study can be used to analyze food safety risks and prioritize target areas for food research and policy-making in order to enforce food safety regulations in Brazil.
Abstract: Brazil is one of the world's largest food producers. Adulteration of foods is often reported and represent an important potential threat to food safety. Because of this, reduction of the vulnerability of foods to adulteration is of high priority to Brazil. This study analyzes economically motivated food fraud and adulterations in Brazil between 2007 and 2017, based on academic journal reports. In addition, alternatives are proposed to minimize these incidents through good practices, traceability systems and the development of methods to detect food fraud and adulteration. Complex supply chains for foods of animal origin, such as milk and dairy products, were the main targets of food fraud and adulterations. Other products prone to fraudulent activities were vegetable oils, especially olive oil, which are high value products. Meat and fish, as well as their respective by‐products, were also involved in some food fraud and adulteration, especially substitution. Cases of extraneous ingredient addition were also reported in the coffee and tea sectors. Comprehensive food fraud and adulteration prevention requires the enforcement of regulatory systems, increased sampling and monitoring, training of food producers and handlers, and development of precise, rapid, and cost‐effective methods of fraud detection. The availability of robust methods to identify the chemical constituents of foods could be a decisive step, both to detect and prevent fraud in producer countries and to open up new markets to these products. The results of this study can be used to analyze food safety risks and prioritize target areas for food research and policy‐making in order to enforce food safety regulations in Brazil. A food fraud and adulteration review was conducted based on scientific literature in Brazil. Milk and its products were the main targets of food fraud and adulterations. Food fraud and adulteration causes and suggestions for good practice are presented. The results can be used to analyze food safety and protect consumer rights.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the Wellcome Trust's Our Planet, Our Health (OPHE) program to support sustainable and healthy food systems (SHEFS) in South Africa.

48 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the versatility of 1H NMR assisted with chemometric tools, avoiding laborious data analysis, for the quantification of coffee adulteration.

43 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Li et al. as mentioned in this paper explored the role of the media in food safety governance in China using dairy products as the case study of interest and found that the government performs better on exposing incidents earlier within the 14-year period but the news media plays a complementary role exposing a wider coverage of incidents.

41 citations


Cites background from "Economically Motivated Food Fraud a..."

  • ...Some looked 205 at patterns of news media coverage only (Liu & Ma, 2016; Zhang & Xue, 2016)....

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  • ...Zhang and Xue (2016) also found that intentional distribution of 218 contaminated products and artificial enhancement were the top fraud types reported....

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  • ...According to Food Safety Laws (FSL) (State Council of China, 2015), relevant 156 departments disseminate information when certain food products are deemed unsafe, and 157 failure to disclose will be punished through warning, demerit record, demotion or even 158 dismissal based on the seriousness of circumstances....

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  • ...Since the 1990s, China has 27 experienced both rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, causing great change in the food 28 supply chain (Zhang & Xue, 2016)....

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  • ...Role of media in shaping the policy process: 542 Comparative lessons from the food price crisis in Bangladesh, China, India, and Vietnam....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results indicated that blockchain is a promising technology toward a food safety control, with many ongoing initiatives in food products, but many food-related issues, barriers, and challenges still exist, Nevertheless, it is expected to provide a feasible solution for controlling food safety risks.
Abstract: Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger technology and is expected to face some difficulties and challenges in various industries due to its transparency, decentralization, tamper-proof nature, and encryption security. Food safety has been paid increasing attention in recent years with economic development. Based on a systematic literature critical analysis, the causes of food safety problems and the state-of-the-art blockchain technology overview, including the definition of blockchain, development history, classification, structure, characteristics, and main applications, the feasibility and application prospects of blockchain technology in plant food safety, animal food safety, and processed food safety were proposed in this review. Finally, the challenges of the blockchain technology itself and the difficulties in the application of food safety were analyzed. This study contributes to the extant literature in the field of food safety by discovering the excellent potential of blockchain technology and its implications for food safety control. Our results indicated that blockchain is a promising technology toward a food safety control, with many ongoing initiatives in food products, but many food-related issues, barriers, and challenges still exist. Nevertheless, it is expected to provide a feasible solution for controlling food safety risks.

39 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a methodology was developed to identify and quantify adulterations in extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) using a portable near-infrared spectrometer (microNIR).

38 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Olive oil, milk, honey, and saffron were the most common targets for adulteration reported in scholarly journals, and potentially harmful issues identified include spices diluted with lead chromate and lead tetraoxide, substitution of Chinese star anise with toxic Japanese star anISE, and melamine adulterated of high protein content foods.
Abstract: : Food ingredient fraud and economically motivated adulteration are emerging risks, but a comprehensive compilation of information about known problematic ingredients and detection methods does not currently exist. The objectives of this research were to collect such information from publicly available articles in scholarly journals and general media, organize into a database, and review and analyze the data to identify trends. The results summarized are a database that will be published in the US Pharmacopeial Convention's Food Chemicals Codex, 8th edition, and includes 1305 records, including 1000 records with analytical methods collected from 677 references. Olive oil, milk, honey, and saffron were the most common targets for adulteration reported in scholarly journals, and potentially harmful issues identified include spices diluted with lead chromate and lead tetraoxide, substitution of Chinese star anise with toxic Japanese star anise, and melamine adulteration of high protein content foods. High-performance liquid chromatography and infrared spectroscopy were the most common analytical detection procedures, and chemometrics data analysis was used in a large number of reports. Future expansion of this database will include additional publically available articles published before 1980 and in other languages, as well as data outside the public domain. The authors recommend in-depth analyses of individual incidents. Practical Application: This report describes the development and application of a database of food ingredient fraud issues from publicly available references. The database provides baseline information and data useful to governments, agencies, and individual companies assessing the risks of specific products produced in specific regions as well as products distributed and sold in other regions. In addition, the report describes current analytical technologies for detecting food fraud and identifies trends and developments.

608 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This research establishes a starting point for defining food fraud and identifying the public health risks, and provides a food risk matrix and identifies food fraud incident types.
Abstract: Food fraud, including the more defined subcategory of economically motivated adulteration, is a food risk that is gaining recognition and concern. Regardless of the cause of the food risk, adulteration of food is both an industry and a government responsibility. Food safety, food fraud, and food defense incidents can create adulteration of food with public health threats. Food fraud is an intentional act for economic gain, whereas a food safety incident is an unintentional act with unintentional harm, and a food defense incident is an intentional act with intentional harm. Economically motivated adulteration may be just that—economically motivated—but the food-related public health risks are often more risky than traditional food safety threats because the contaminants are unconventional. Current intervention systems are not designed to look for a near infinite number of potential contaminants. The authors developed the core concepts reported here following comprehensive research of articles and reports, expert elicitation, and an extensive peer review. The intent of this research paper is to provide a base reference document for defining food fraud—it focuses specifically on the public health threat—and to facilitate a shift in focus from intervention to prevention. This will subsequently provide a framework for future quantitative or innovative research. The fraud opportunity is deconstructed using the criminology and behavioral science applications of the crime triangle and the chemistry of the crime. The research provides a food risk matrix and identifies food fraud incident types. This project provides a starting point for future food science, food safety, and food defense research. Practical Application: Food fraud, including the more defined subcategory of economically motivated adulteration, is a food protection threat that has not been defined or holistically addressed. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led to the development of food defense as an autonomous area of study and a new food protection discipline. As economically motivated adulteration grows in scope, scale, and awareness, it is conceivable that food fraud will achieve the same status as an autonomous concept, between food safety and food defense. This research establishes a starting point for defining food fraud and identifying the public health risks.

571 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
16 Jun 2017
TL;DR: A food supply chain traceability system for real-time food tracing based on HACCP, blockchain and Internet of things, which could provide an information platform for all the supply chain members with openness, transparency, neutrality, reliability and security is built and a new concept BigchainDB is introduced to fill the gap in the decentralized systems at scale.
Abstract: In recent times food safety has drawn upsurge of academic and commercial concerns. In supply chain area, with the rapid growth of internet technologies, a lot of emerging technologies have been applied in traceability systems. However, to date, nearly all of these systems are centralized which are monopolistic, asymmetric and opaque that could result in the trust problem, such as fraud, corruption, tampering and falsifying information. Besides, centralized system is vulnerable to collapse, since a single point of breakdown will lead the whole system to be crashed. Today, a new technology called the blockchain which is a ground-breaking innovation in decentralized information technology presents a whole new approach. However, since this technology is still in its early stages, it has some inherent defects, in which scalability become a primary and urgent one when we face the mass data in the real world. In this paper we will build a food supply chain traceability system for real-time food tracing based on HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), blockchain and Internet of things, which could provide an information platform for all the supply chain members with openness, transparency, neutrality, reliability and security. Furthermore, we introduce a new concept BigchainDB to fill the gap in the decentralized systems at scale. The paper concludes with a description of a use case and the challenges to adopt blockchain technology in the future food supply chain traceability systems are discussed.

521 citations


"Economically Motivated Food Fraud a..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Recently, the use of Blockchains and Internet of Things for implementation of traceability systems can provide an information platform for all the supply chain members with openness, transparency, neutrality, reliability, and security (Tian, 2017)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a review of the application of NIR spectroscopy in the food processing industry, focusing on studies dealing with on-line application of industrial processes in food industry, which were categorized according to their application conditions into semi-industrial scale and industrial scale.
Abstract: Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy represents an emerging analytical technique, which is enjoying increasing popularity in the food processing industry due to its low running costs, and since it does not require sample preparation. Moreover, it is a non-destructive, environmental friendly, rapid technique capable for on-line application. Therefore, this technique is predestined for implementation as an analytical tool in industrial processing. The different fields of application of NIR spectroscopy reported in the present review highlight its enormous versatility. Quantitative analyses of chemical constituents using this methodology are widespread. Moreover, a wide range of qualitative determinations, e.g. for authenticity control, sample discrimination, the assessment of sensory, rheological or technological properties, and physical attributes have been reported. Both animal- and plant-derived foodstuffs have been evaluated in this context. Highly diverse matrices such as intact solid samples, free-flowing solids, pasty, and fluid samples can by analysed by NIR spectroscopy. Sophisticated conditions for the application in industrial scale comprise among others measurements on moving conveyor belts, in continuous flows in tubes, and monitoring of fermentation processes. For such purposes, different construction designs of NIR spectrometers for hyperspectral imaging, portable devices, fibre optical and direct contact probes as well as tube integrated probes measuring through windows, and automated sample cell loading have been developed. In the present review, emphasis was put on studies dealing with on-line application of NIR spectroscopy for industrial processes in the food industry, which were categorised according to their application conditions into semi-industrial scale and industrial scale.

394 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Common characteristics among the incidents of economically motivated adulteration of food reflect the ways in which existing regulatory systems or testing methodologies were inadequate for detecting EMA and how novel detection methods and other deterrence strategies can be deployed.

260 citations


"Economically Motivated Food Fraud a..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The most common frauds are the substitution of a higher market value species, indicated on the package label, for the lower value species; product weight increase by the addition of excess water to frozen products; change in the stated country of origin; and use of illicit chemicals in production (Everstine et al., 2013)....

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  • ...Food fraud and adulteration deliberately designed to evade detection is also difficult to report in academic journals (Everstine et al., 2013)....

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  • ...These industry-driven associations are an option to avoid adulterations and gain consumer confidence (Everstine et al., 2013)....

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  • ...In this case, dairy products, including infant formula, containing melamine were sold, causing six deaths, and thousands of cases of illness (Everstine et al., 2013; Zhang & Xue, 2016)....

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