Food Security

For many industry experts, the proposed rule doesn’t go far enough because it ties intentional adulteration only to acts of terrorism, which may be relatively rare, and not to economically motivated adulteration (EMA), such as food fraud, counterfeiting, or acts of disgruntled employees, all of which are more likely to occur and may also result in injury or death. For example, in 2008 dairy processors in China added melamine to milk and infant formula to artificially inflate laboratory protein measurements and conceal dilution. The adulteration killed several children and sickened thousands more. Disgruntled employees can also adulterate foods during production and shipping while malicious consumers can tamper with foods on shelves.

The FDA does not consider intentional adulteration by disgruntled employees, competitors, or consumers to be of “high risk” because, it says, such acts are not intended to cause widespread public health harm. The agency does plan to address EMA in a preventive controls framework where it is “reasonably likely to occur.” Not everyone agrees. “Each of these motivations, regardless of intent, takes advantage of a vulnerable point in our food supply and can cause catastrophic health effects,” argues Amy Kircher, DrPH, director of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense. She recommends a supply chain focus for food defense that identifies and closes gaps wherever they exist, such as during transportation. “Using a supply chain approach allows companies to cost effectively target their food defense efforts,” Dr. Kircher says.

On the other hand, the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) supports the exclusion of economically motivated adulteration from the rule because “it is fundamentally different than intentionally introduced contamination that is intended to produce great public health harm.” But AFDO believes that seafood and juice facilities, which carry their own Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) imposed restrictions, should not be exempt from economically motivated adulteration, as the agency currently proposes. AFDO is also concerned that imported food products will not be held to the same standards as domestic products, and that the domestic industry will be thus placed at an unfair disadvantage. “Import rules and inspection and compliance programs must ensure parity and consistency between domestic and foreign facilities,” it argued in its submitted comments.

Fighting Fraud in the U.K.

The U.K., which last year was rocked by revelations of widespread adulteration of beef with horsemeat, may be adopting a different approach to combatting intentional adulteration—creating a national crime unit. Last year, up to half the samples of packaged ground beef sold in U.K. supermarkets were found to contain horsemeat. In a comprehensive report released in September 2014, Chris Elliott, professor of food safety and director of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, concluded that while the U.K. has one of the world’s safest food systems, organized criminal gangs were “adulterating, tampering, stealing, and counterfeiting” food. Among the report’s recommendations: creation of Food Crime Unit within the Food Standards Agency (Britain’s counterpart to the FDA) to counter the growing problem of food fraud.

“Food fraud becomes food crime when it no longer involves a few random acts by ‘rogues’ within the food industry but becomes an organized activity perpetrated by groups who knowingly set out to deceive and/or injure those purchasing a food product,” the Elliott report says. “Food crime is a global problem, growing in scale,” the report explains. While the extent of the fraud is unknown, “what we do know is that it can be a cause of major food safety risks which severely undermines consumer trust in the food industry,” says David Richardson, a vice president at NSF International. A food crime unit could cost upwards of $6 million, and the British government is evaluating the recommendation.