Paul Brereton, Verda Fazlic and Vahid Mojtahed of Fera Science explain the objectives of the European project FoodIntegrity and review some of the progress to date.
The Challenge
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The provision of safe and authentic European food produced to defined quality standards is a key expectation of consumers as well as a key selling point for the European agri-food economy. European food is recognised globally for its high standards of production, labelling and safety. As such, it is susceptible to lower quality imitations that seek to exploit the added value that European products have with respect to consumers and the global food market. Counterfeiting of food products has a major detrimental effect on the EU food industry as consumers start to doubt the authenticity of European brands. Whereas food safety within Europe is well co-ordinated and has a high profile, this is not the case for detection of food fraud or the enforcement of associated legislation. The main stumbling blocks to progress are reluctance to share data/intelligence/reference materials due to concerns from industry about competition, the need to protect the brand specification and the market price, lack of trust in third party understanding of the data and concerns about consumer reaction.
In recent years consumer preference for food with declared provenance has led to an increase in the marketing of foods from designated origins/productions and a strengthening of European legislation regarding the labelling of food. As a result, the food industry is highly engaged in establishing an infrastructure that will verify food authenticity/provenance and is seeking to actively contribute to assuring the authenticity of the food supply.
Counterfeiting of food products has a major detrimental effect on the EU food industry as consumers start to doubt the authenticity of European brands."
Following the horsemeat incident of 2013, there was a clear need for an initiative that would link up major stakeholders, establish data sharing tools and working practices, provide rapid fit for purpose screening and verification methods, exploit past and present work and provide a consolidated research base from which to identify and commission new research. FoodIntegrity, a €12M European project, aims to fulfil that need. The 5 year project started in January 2014 and aims to:
• provide Europe with a state of the art and integrated capability for detecting fraud and assuring the integrity of the food chain;
• develop a sustainable body of expertise that can inform high level stakeholder platforms on food fraud / authenticity issues and priorities;
• act as a bridge that will link previous research activities, assess capability gaps, commission research and inform Horizon 2020 research needs. Led by Fera Science and comprising 38 partners from Europe and China, FoodIntegrity (FI) will achieve these aims by fulfilling the following specific objectives:
1. Establish an international network of expertise that will inform regulatory and industry stakeholders about food authenticity issues and inform Horizon 2020 on future research needs.
2. Consolidate available information on existing datasets, available methodology and establish a tangible and interrogatable knowledge base that will facilitate data sharing between European stakeholders.
3. Commission research and development needed to address the gaps in current capability.
4. Develop fit for purpose verification methods and systems for three food commodities that are significantly affected by adulteration and fraud (olive oil, spirits and seafood).
5. Investigate consumer attitudes and perceptions towards food authenticity and traceability of European products in home and emerging markets (using China as a case study).
6. Develop and test an early warning system for use by stakeholders that can identify potential food fraud events.
7. Provide practical tools and systems that can be integrated into food industry production and supply chains for assuring the integrity of food.
8. Ensure knowledge transfer of FoodIntegrity outputs and initiatives to the food industry, regulatory, enforcement, research and consumer stakeholders.
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Dr Wu Yongning from China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment and the Dr Jeff Moore from U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention addressing the attendees at the FoodIntegrity Conference - Assuring the integrity of the food chain: Fighting food fraud.
Progress to date
FoodIntegrity (FI) has made significant progress in its first two and a half years.
Bringing people together
One of the main successes of FI to date is to bring key stakeholders together to discuss food authenticity problems and possible solutions. A recent FI conference had over 250 attendees from 38 countries discussing all aspects of food fraud from detection methods to food assurance, prevention and criminology. Different international perspectives were presented by speakers from China and the USA. In addition the impact of food fraud on: the consumer, industry, food control and the regulator were also discussed. A networking portal is now active via the website (Food Integrity Network) where both experts and stakeholders involved in food authenticity can register, link up with other members and/or be invited to take part in FI events/ activities. FI collaborates with other relevant projects, such as the EU projects SPICED and Authent-Net, The US Pharmocopeial Convention, DG Sante’s Food Fraud Network as well as the UK Virtual Authenticity Network. In the coming year activities will be taking place in: Lisbon, Shanghai and Parma to link up with more key actors and experts to ensure FI provides a focal point for networking and solutions to support the fight against food fraud.
One of the main successes of FI to date is to bring key stakeholders together to discuss food authenticity problems and possible solutions."
New research
A large part of FI is undertaking research in the following areas to address some of the key issues in identifying and mitigating food fraud:
• Application of profiling technology to the identification of food fraud
• Rapid methods
• Authentication of complex foods
• Transparency along the food chain
• Non analytical procedures for reducing fraud
• Early warning systems for food fraud
• Consumer behaviour studies.
Chinese consumer attitudes to European food products
While some of the research will not come to fruition for another two years, other projects are near completion. For example, work led by Newcastle University has carried out research into Chinese consumer attitudes to European food products. This is the first study of its kind involving over 800 consumers and will help inform those exporting products to China of important aspects that Chinese consumers take into account when purchasing European goods.
Early warning systems to detect food fraud
Fera Science is also leading a European group of researchers who are developing early warning systems for food fraud detection. These activities are focused on two main technologies – text mining using Bayesian networks[1] and developing econometric algorithms that identify potential signals of food fraud and environments where food fraud might take place. The work is highly innovative and aims to provide tools for governments and industry that mitigate risk through a predictive and thereby a preventative approach rather than the much more costly reactive approach that predominates currently through detection and subsequent intervention (see Figure 1).
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Figure 1 The focus of the early warning research (WP8) is on predictive approaches that allow prevention rather than reactive approaches that require intervention
The FoodIntegrity KnowledgeBase is a web-based tool that provides a wealth of information on the type, frequency and impact of various food fraud practices together with recommended analytical strategies to deal with the issues.
The overall structure is now in place and the task of entering available information is underway. The search engine for the Knowledge Base has now been designed. When looking for information, the stakeholder will be able to select a food category from a drop-down list, enter a CN code and/or specify a type of fraud (dilution, substitution, etc.) or food integrity issue (geographical origin, product composition, etc.). It will also be possible to find information by using a wildcard search and searching for multiple words separated with AND / OR / AND NOT in upper case. A simple click on the ‘Get Results’ button will bring up all relevant data entries in tabular format, from which it will be possible to display individual or previously selected entries. An additional click will export the selection to a PDF file. Work will continue over the next few months to compile initial data into the Knowledge Base, which will go live in the autumn of this year.
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Applications for industry
The Italian food company Barilla is leading work within FI which aims to look at the opportunities for companies to implement FI activities within different industrial sectors. For example, how to bring together available data on industrially implementable analytical tools for detection of food fraud and identify reliable indicators/markers to use for horizon scanning of possible fraud events. Having such a high profile industry partner has ensured that FI activities are focused on end users and has improved industry engagement.
How to get involved
FI is the international focal point for the science behind anti-food fraud. It undertakes extensive communication, dissemination and training activities. For more information, visit the Food Integrity website or download/sign up to receive our newsletters and join our networks.
References
1. Yamine Bouzembrak, Hans J.P. Marvin, Prediction of food fraud type using data from Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and Bayesian network modelling. Food Control, Volume 61, March 2016, Pages 180–187
Paul Brereton, Verda Fazlic, Vahid Mojtahed, Fera Science Ltd, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ Web: www.foodintegrity.eu The authors would like to acknowledge the FoodIntegrity Consortium. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No 613688. The information and views set out in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information
The provision of safe and authentic European food produced to defined quality standards is a key expectation of consumers as well as a key selling point for the European agri-food economy. European food is recognised globally for its high standards of production, labelling and safety. As such, it is susceptible to lower quality imitations that seek to exploit the added value that European products have with respect to consumers and the global food market. Counterfeiting of food products has a major detrimental effect on the EU food industry as consumers start to doubt the authenticity of European brands. Whereas food safety within Europe is well co-ordinated and has a high profile, this is not the case for detection of food fraud or the enforcement of associated legislation. The main stumbling blocks to progress are reluctance to share data/intelligence/reference materials due to concerns from industry about competition, the need to protect the brand specification and the market price, lack of trust in third party understanding of the data and concerns about consumer reaction.
Applications for industry