Food fraud is on the rise across the globe, and it is impacting
all forms of products — from milk and olive oil to seafood and
beef. While some cases of food fraud are due to the efforts of
unscrupulous processors, some honest food companies are
unknowingly producing items containing fraudulent ingredients.
Europe’s meat industry has been in crisis mode since Ireland
announced that at least one-third of frozen “beef” burgers
produced in the country contained traces — or sometimes much
more than traces — of horsemeat. Since then, horsemeat has been
detected in many European meat products, from Ikea’s signature
Swedish meatballs to prepared meals produced by Nestle. So far,
no horsemeat has been detected in the U.S. food supply. But the
U.S. food industry is no stranger to other types of food fraud.
The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) maintains a Food Fraud
Database which identifies cases of food fraud occurring in the
U.S. The USP in January released its most recent update to the
database, which added almo