Food fraud costing millions of euro

Food fraud is worth tens of millions of euro and it pays the wrongdoers, leaving consumers increasingly likely to end up eating food masquerading as something it is not, the European Parliament has warned.

They took the example of Ireland where the horse meat scandal was first unveiled, but the maximum fine of €30,000 is less than half the profit of €65,000 to be made from selling single container of horsemeat as beef.

“The chance of getting caught is low and the cost of getting caught is also low,” warned Dutch MEP Esther de Lange who investigated the situation for the European Parliament.

“The Irish example shows this,” she said, adding that only one of the four companies could be prosecuted because of existing regulations.

The report comes a year after the discovery of horse DNA in burgers supposed to contain beef in Ireland, which led to similar discoveries in other EU countries.

Every case of food fraud affects the reputation of the EU food industry, and made consumers more frightened, said MEP Máiréad McGuinness, despite food standards here being among the highest in the world.

As a result although a person was 260 times more likely to die from the flu than from bad food, a third of consumers do not trust the information on food labels.

But there is no definition of food fraud in EU legislation and this should be a starting point and it should include misleading consumers intentionally for financial gain.

The report recommends regular surprise raids on producers and suppliers, more cross-border co-operation between the authorities and better information for the consumer.

Labelling of meat ingredients in food has also been proposed and the European Commission is drafting proposals for this, but Ms McGuinness warned there must not be too much bureaucracy involved.

“In addition the number of controls is extremely limited and as a result, food fraud remains largely undetected, especially when there are no public health or food safety implications,” she said.

The report, which was passed by a huge majority in the parliament, included research into counterfeit products and listed the top ten products that are sold to consumers as something they are not.

They include olive oil, fish, organic foods, milk, grains, honey and maple syrup, coffee and tea, spices such as saffron and chilli powder, wine and certain fruit juices.

Fish was a particular problem with cheap white fish being sold as cod, farmed fish being sold a wild, and frozen sold as fresh.

“From road salt used in foods, to the marketing of regular eggs as organic, to the horse meat scandal — all are examples of an ever increasing crime of ‘food fraud’,” said Ms McGuinness.