The National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) is a specialised branch of the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), established in response to concerns about the integrity and safety of the food supply chain. Its primary role is to investigate and tackle food-related criminal activities, such as fraud, adulteration, and misrepresentation, that can pose risks to public health or undermine consumer confidence in the food industry.

Key Responsibilities of the NFCU:

• Investigation of Food Crime: The NFCU focuses on complex cases of food crime, which may include counterfeiting, fraudulent labelling, or illegal substitution of ingredients. For example, substituting a lower-quality product for a higher-quality one (e.g., selling horse meat as beef) is a type of food fraud.
• Collaboration with Law Enforcement: The NFCU works closely with law enforcement agencies such as the police, local authorities, and international bodies like Europol. This collaboration ensures that food crime is addressed at multiple levels, from local food businesses to cross-border operations.
• Industry Engagement and Awareness: The NFCU also plays a role in educating businesses within the food sector about potential risks and how to mitigate them. By raising awareness and offering guidance, the unit helps prevent food fraud before it happens.
• Public Protection: One of the NFCU’s main goals is to ensure that food products sold in the UK are safe, properly labeled, and free from criminal interference. Their efforts help maintain trust in the food industry and protect consumers from potentially dangerous or fraudulent products.

The NFCU gained attention during the investigation of the horse meat scandal in 2013, which was a major food fraud incident in Europe. Since then, the unit has expanded its scope and developed advanced methods for identifying and responding to food crime, including the use of intelligence analysis and forensic techniques. In recent years, the NFCU has focused on the growing complexity of food supply chains, particularly in light of challenges such as Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. The unit has also warned about risks from online food fraud, including counterfeit products being sold through digital marketplaces. The NFCU remains a critical agency in safeguarding food integrity in the UK, ensuring that consumers can trust the quality and safety of the food they purchase.

The strategic objectives of the NFCU are to:

• Prevent food from being rendered unsafe or inauthentic through dishonesty
• Disrupt offending and bring offenders to justice
• Build global and domestic counter food crime capability

The NFCU plays an important role in multi-sector engagement at national and international levels. It works closely with the food industry to ensure that businesses are well-informed and prepared to counter food crime. The Unit aims to create a hostile environment for those engaging in food crime by investigating suspected offenders or otherwise supporting partners in their lawful efforts to similarly disrupt those criminals.

The Unit collects and analyses intelligence from diverse sources to produce comprehensive strategic assessments, identifying key threats, risks, and vulnerabilities within the food sector. It collaborates with the industry to enhance awareness, test their response mechanisms against food crime, and strengthen their resilience, ultimately benefiting both businesses and the public.

Costly

A warning has been made over the risks of food fraud which is costing the UK up to £2 billion per year after Food Standards Scotland and the Food Standard Agency published their latest Food Crime Strategic Assessment. Although the report found that the majority of food in the UK is safe and authentic, they do have concerns over the threat of food crime. Blame has largely been placed on huge recent geopolitical events around the world which have caused disruption in the food chain and left it open to fraud.

Those events, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s attacks on Palestine, have increased the risk of food crime. Other key issues found in the report show that the disruption in the UK’s food supply in the post-Brexit world is also offering new opportunities to criminals while more is now known about the individuals involved in committing food crimes.

The report is the organisations’ assessment of the threat facing the country from criminals who seek to profit from serious fraud within the food chain. The assessment explores the range of factors thought to influence the food crime landscape as well as sharing what the key threats are within the intelligence picture.

It discusses the seven different types of food crime which are document fraud, theft, waste diversion unlawful processing as well as substitution, misrepresentation and adulteration. It is then shared with local authorities, government partners and industry to protect legitimate businesses and consumers from the threat.

Ron McNaughton is the head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit at FSS and believes the disruption to the food chain in recent years has been ‘significant’ and is therefore causing problems across the board.

He said: “In the four years since our last strategic assessment, the UK food supply has faced significant disruption, creating new opportunities for criminal activity. This latest report outlines key food crime threats and highlights emerging risks within food systems due to external factors. Addressing food crime demands ongoing collaboration across regulatory bodies, law enforcement, and industry, with shared intelligence, data, and experience remaining vital to both this assessment and tackling food crime effectively.”

Andrew Quinn, Head of the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit said: “We’re confident that in the UK most food is what it says it is, but even small levels of food fraud are unacceptable. Although it’s our view that food fraud is low, the risks are changing, and that is why we’ve worked with FSS to develop and publish the Food Crime Strategic Assessment today.

“Food businesses are the first line of defence in ensuring food is safe and authentic; the Food Crime Strategic Assessment encourages food businesses to know their supply chain and manage fraud risks within them. We’re sharing what they need to look out for and we’re encouraging businesses to take up our free support. The more we know about food crime, the better we can tackle it together with both the industry itself and our Local Authority partners to protect legitimate businesses and consumers.”

Deadly Fake Vodka

In September, 40 bottles of counterfeit vodka, sold in 35cl bottles (commonly known as half bottles) and fraudulently labelled as Glen’s, were recovered from a shop in Coatbridge after a member of the public reported that the product they had purchased smelled of nail varnish remover. The discovery prompted Food Standards Scotland (FSS) to issue a public health warning after lab results from the counterfeit vodka confirmed the presence of the chemical Isopropyl, which can be harmful if consumed.

Following more seizures from shops in the Glasgow area, FSS has issued a rare ‘food alert for action notice’ to all of Scotland’s councils, requesting them to identify and visit relevant establishments in their area to check for counterfeit products and make businesses aware of the issue. FSS said it has been working closely with the brand owner for Glen’s vodka to try and mitigate the risk to consumers. As a result, additional information is being provided to help them distinguish between genuine and counterfeit products. A spokesperson for the Loch Lomond Group which owns Glen’s Vodka, said: “Our priority is the health and safety of the public which includes our many thousands of loyal Glen’s customers.”

Rising Food Fraud Cases

When a family bought an innocent-looking dark chocolate bar at a market in Mansfield last year, they had no idea of the nightmare about to ensue. Just hours after eating it, they became severely ill. Two children were rushed to hospital, and it was later discovered that the chocolate, which was mislabelled and unbranded, contained traces of hallucinogens.

It’s just one example of rising food fraud cases in everything from olive oil – a particular target, due to the premiums paid for extra virgin – to alcohol. The FSA warned consumers about fake bottles of Glen’s Vodka that contained isopropyl alcohol, which is not intended for human consumption.

Professor Chris Elliott, a food safety expert who led the horsemeat investigations more than 10 years ago, believes it’s a snowballing issue. A series of factors – from post-Brexit regulatory divergence and supply chain disruptions to the climate crisis and rising online crime – are converging to create “absolute chaos” in terms of food safety in the UK, he warns.

Incidents such as the adulterated chocolate and Glen’s have made headlines because of their extreme nature. But most food fraud is less extreme, and far more pervasive, than most people might think – accounting for up to 25% of food safety cases, according to data from the Food Authenticity Network. Even that is just the “tip of the iceberg”, believes Professor Lisa Jack, an expert in food systems crime at the University of Portsmouth. Most food fraud incidents go undetected, making it hard to get accurate data.

That means estimates vary. In the UK alone, the cost of food fraud to consumers, businesses and government can range from £410m to £1.96bn per year, the FSA’s ‘Cost of Food Crime’ research found last year. But there’s no doubt many will have been on the receiving end. Jack chuckles as she recounts how “friends of mine used to say: ‘I didn’t used to like goat cheese, but it’s a lot more palatable now’. They didn’t realise it was being mixed with cow or sheep cheese.”

Today, experts are warning of a growing catalogue of incidents. These can include mislabelling, misrepresenting ingredients, tampering or bulking otherwise genuine products with other ingredients, illegal processing, falsifying documents and waste diversion.

That’s partly due to skyrocketing prices, which means “food fraud is never far away”, says Richard Leathers, global quality lead at food science company Campden BRI. The effect is only being compounded by the immense stress on global supply chains due to crises such as Covid-19, the Ukraine war and now the Red Sea conflict, paired with the strain on the drought-struck Panama Canal route. Furthermore, the effects of climate change on harvests and extreme weather events can all act as triggers for potential food fraud, a recent Campden BRI report warned.

For an example of the impact, look no further than olive oil – which is experiencing unprecedented supply shortages and price increases. The EU reported a record number of potential olive oil fraud and mislabelling cases in the first quarter of this year. In a large operation in southern Italy in July, officials broke up a racket selling fake olive oil, confiscating 42 tonnes of the extra virgin variety worth almost $1m.

Meanwhile, an FSA report earlier this year also found that lead dyes, chalk dust and brick dust were being used to bulk up spices. “There’s no doubt there are a lot of cost pressures in the supply chain,” says food safety consultant Alec Kyriakides, who was Sainsbury’s head of quality, safety & supplier performance for nearly 30 years. “We’re left with commodities and products that are at their highest price for many years – and that drives the food system into ways to reduce costs that might have increased risk.”

However, he argues “from a food industry perspective, it is structurally more robust now than it has ever been in terms of controls”, including regular audits and sampling, as well as third-party accreditation schemes such as the food safety standards-focused BRCGS. “There are greater challenges, but I don’t feel the system is less secure than in the past,” he adds.

Andrew Quinn, head of the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit (NFCU), is keen to point out the UK has “some of the safest and most authentic food in the world”. According to FSA data from February this year, 97% of the foods tested for authenticity passed. t’s absolutely key they build trust between themselves and the industry, so we can work together on issues like this to root out bad practice and ensure consumers are getting the food they expect and food they can trust.