What is “food fraud?” It’s the practice of selling cheaper alternate substances with labels that indicate that they are an expensive delicacy. This type of con has been around since Roman times but with the FDA overwhelmed dealing with food contamination issues, cases of “food fraud” are on the rise.
New high tech methods of discovering food fraud make it possible to detect cases that might have gone unnoticed before. DNA testing can be employed to test cells from food, everything from fish and meat to rice and coffee, to assure that it is really what the seller claims it to be. Isotope ration analysis can also find subtle differences between foodstuffs, like whether or not a fish is farmed or wild or whether caviar is actually imported from Finland or pulled from a local stream.
These techniques are so easy and accessible that even high school science students can use them effectively. Two New York City high schoolers worked with scientists at the Rockefeller University and American Museum of Natural History last year to test the DNA of 66 foods found on Manhattan grocery store shelves. 11 of the 66 items were mislabeled.
Their discoveries included expensive sheep’s milk cheese being sold in a Manhattan market that turned out to really be made of cow’s milk and jars of what was supposed to be Sturgeon caviar that were actually filled with the much less appetizing sounding Mississippi paddlefish.
Last year a man in Fairfax, Virginia was charged and convicted with selling 10 million pounds of cheap, frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam as grouper, red snapper and flounder – all much more expensive fish. The fish ended up all over the country, served in restaurants and homes alike. Another common food fraud is honey makers who dilute their honey with sugar beets or corn syrup and then market it as 100% pure. Cases have also been documented of fraudulent fruit juice, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup. John Spink, an expert on food and packaging fraud at Michigan State University, estimates that 5 to 7 percent of the U.S. food supply is affected by food fraud. The FDA is moving to address the problem, but with resources stretched to the limit already, it remains to be seen how much will be done about cases where mislabeling is not actually threatening the health of consumers.
