Introduction

Food fraud operates at many levels, for example, atglobal, national and/or a localised level, and spansboth urban and rural criminality (Manning et al,2016). Fraudulent activity occurs if there isrecognition that there is an opportunity to makemoney or, alternatively, avoid loss (Schuchter andLevi, 2015, citing Coleman, 1987). Food fraud canarise in terms of the integrity of the food item,the processes used and/or the people employed or theassociated data (Manning, 2016). The UK's FoodStandards Agency (FSA) states that food fraud is:‘deliberately placing food on the market, forfinancial gain, with the intention of deceiving theconsumer’ (Elliott Review, 2014). Collectively, foodfraud encompasses the deliberate and intentionalsubstitution, addition, tampering ormisrepresentation of food, food ingredients or foodpackaging; or false or misleading statements madeabout a product for economic gain (see Spink andMoyer, 2011a, b; Grundy et al, 2012). Furtherdefinitions have been synthesised (see Table 8.1),and these all focus on fraudulent activity andmotivation in terms of deliberate intent.

The foods most vulnerable to food fraud include (seeWHO, 2008):

• • Foods of high value, where substituting analternative ingredient in the food can providesignificant financial gain.

• • Foods associated with an ideologicalgrouping, whereby adulteration of that food can beseen as an ideological or ethnic challenge to thatgroup itself.

• • Foods produced, manufactured and stored inreadily accessible or poorly supervised areas, orwhere staff who are working in those areas havelittle awareness of the potential for foodcrime.

• • Foods susceptible to tampering orinterference where this can go undetected by theinspection and testing routinely undertaken in thefood supply chain.

• • Widely disseminated or distributed foods withcomplex interactions in the supply chain.

Similarly, a number of drivers exist that can influencethe potential for food fraud: market competition andresource scarcity, power imbalance, inadequategovernance, lack of sanctions and low probability ofdiscovery, rapid development of systems, logisticsand technology, data swamping and opacity(Charlebois et al, 2016; Manning, 2016; Manning etal, 2016; Marvin et al, 2016). Indeed, fraudulentpractices may well go undetected by regulatoryauthorities and also senior management within foodcompanies.