Overview of Food Crime
One of the definitions of food crime is “serious fraud and related criminality within food supply chains”. That succinctly describes the crux of the food crime problem. While things might appear quite normal on the food supply front, the apparent normalcy can get suddenly upturned in times of sudden crises.
During the pandemic, the lockdowns imposed in certain countries also led to an initial sudden shut down of the food service sector. Consumers increasingly began shopping closer home or via online platforms.
Consumers began to stockpile products like dry pasta and frozen vegetables, thereby putting the retail supply routes under considerable stress. The purchase of food online, however, has its own set of challenges, including uncertainty about regulation and reduced traceability.
What is particularly distressing about the pandemic is the fact that a demand for cheaper food products has led to an increased likelihood of food crime. Due to stressed food supply chains, there was lesser attention to the quality of the food being purchased and tracing its source. This can lead to criminal elements amongst traders attempting to monetise low quality or actually harmful to health food products at very low prices.
Though not always the case, most food crimes are invariably the handiwork of people hailing from the food industry. Their modus operandi would generally be to use what might be a partially legitimate food business to sell unsafe and adulterated food products. On the whole, there doesn’t seem to be the hand of any organized crime groups or syndicates.
That being stated, there certainly is some involvement of organized crime groups in food crime. They may use the food business as a conduit to launder money, indulge in smuggling and the exploitation of people. They do so by infiltrating international supply chains to conceal banned and illegal commodities like drugs and weapons. One very lucrative target for criminals in the food industry has to be alcohol, which allows them to make a killing by buying it cheaply, avoid paying taxes and selling it very profitably at the market rate.
FDA New Rule on Food Traceability
The FDA has come out with a new rule that describes the ground rules for the farm to table traceability paradigm that is to encapsulate the US food industry. The idea behind this is to put into place in the words of the agency, “beyond what is already required in existing regulations.”
This rule is quite broad, as it applies to a whole host of sectors in the food industry, including companies that manufacture, process or pack that the FDA has decided forms part of the food traceability list. This is especially true of food items that may potentially pose a safety risk.
This may include things like eggs, different kinds of soft cheese and fresh food and vegetables including some kinds of fish and seafood as well as ready to eat salads. The FDA maintains that the new rule will define a standard template to traceability and record keeping that will help in the implementation of a future digital track and trace system.
This enhanced traceability paradigm will ensure that there are fewer instances of recalls and enables the FDA to provide better and more targeted advisories to people in the event of any outbreaks or emergency situations.
Food Traceability List
The food traceability list or FTL list concerns itself with foods that require additional traceability records that the proposed Section 204 of the FDA Food Safety Modernization (FSMA) mandates. This would also be applicable to foods that comprise as ingredients some foods on the list. In order to identify, as to which foods should be part of FTL, the FDA came up with a risk ranking methodology to help in food tracing. This is based upon factors that the Congress identified in Section 204 of FSMA. These are as under:
- Outbreaks frequency and rate of occurrence of illness.
- The severity of the illnesses in question.
- The possibility of contamination.
- The possibility of pathogen growth vis-a-vis shelf life.
- Possibility of manufacturing process contamination as well as industry-wide intervention.
- The rate of consumption and amount consumed.
- The cost of the illness.
The FDA has provisionally identified foods that are to be included in the FTL. This list was announced as part of the Food Traceability Proposed Rule. When the FDA comes out with the final rule, the FTL will then be published.
TrackMatriX® Track and Trace Platform
TrackMatriX® is an end-to-end track and trace platform that is widely used in the food industry. The TrackMatriX® end-to-end traceability solution makes use of proprietary QR codes and NFC tags for tracking and tracing products throughout the supply chain.
What’s great about TrackMatriX® solutions is the fact that it comes in a convenient SaaS platform that both helps protect brands from counterfeiting and enhances their ability to engage with their customers. It does so by enabling product authentication and customer engagement via QR codes, NFC tags, and custom landing pages.
Food brands and manufacturers can leverage these solutions to monitor product flow throughout their supply chain empowering them to take quick remedial action on the back of automatic reporting of any attempts at counterfeiting. Enhanced traceability will also prove very useful in case of recalls as companies are provided with deep insights about product distribution in their supply chain as well as consumer behavior.
Conclusion
The rise in traceability in the farm to fork scenario would be good for both food safety and security. By plugging the gaps in the supply chain, one is able to both address issues of pilferage and adulteration making it possible for companies and the authorities to ensure uninterrupted and safe availability of food for everyone.
The pandemic has caused disruption in the food supply chain, which needed to be tackled at a systemic level. Assuring food security to the more and seven and a half billion people living on the planet is the biggest challenge of our time. The good news is that a combination of affirmative government actions and technological innovation can make that happen.
To learn more about TrackMatriX® track and trace platform for food traceability, please contact us by clicking the button below.
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