Seafood fraud is well documented in food fraud databases and has been emphasized in multiple studies due to its enormous economic, health, and marine conservation consequences. Food fraud evaluations are commonly regarded as critical activities for identifying potential deception sites in supply chains.
This study evaluates the food fraud vulnerability of post-harvest seafood supply chains in the United Kingdom, exploring variations based on commodity, supply chain node, firm size, and certification status.
Using the SSAFE food fraud vulnerability assessment methodology, which evaluates 48 fraud characteristics linked to opportunities, motivations, and controls, the investigation found that seafood supply chains are moderately vulnerable to food fraud. The greatest perceived vulnerability was seen in the technical potential.
Certification status was revealed as a stronger predictor of vulnerability than other criteria, particularly the amount of restrictions. Smaller businesses and those in the food service industry were found to have a greater sense of vulnerability.
Furthermore, this research examines past food fraud tendencies in the industry to provide additional information. The data suggests that some categories, such as uncertified prawn supply networks, salmon supply chains, and food service companies, may be more vulnerable to food fraud. This thorough investigation of food fraud vulnerability in the UK’s seafood supply chains adds to the growing body of work on detecting vulnerabilities and increasing resistance to food-related criminal activity in the global food system.
What is Food Fraud?
Food fraud is well-documented and provides significant opportunities for those using fraudulent methods. Following many high-profile food fraud cases, the food industry, consumers, and authorities have grown increasingly concerned about food-related criminality. This issue affects the economy, public health, and consumer confidence.
Seafood has a lengthy history of food fraud, with global evidence of seafood mislabeling described as ‘ubiquitous.’ The seafood sector, which has one of the most complicated and diverse supply chains in the food business, is facing the simultaneous difficulties of increased demand and resource constraints, making product integrity difficult to sustain. Additional pressures from the EU exit, the COVID-19 epidemic, the crisis in Ukraine, and inflation have likely increased the danger of food fraud.
Seafood fraud is discovered at every node in the supply chain using diverse approaches, jeopardizing sustainable and ethical marine management. It also poses public health dangers because it may include poisons, pollutants, allergies, or zoonotic parasites.
Ensuring Integrity in the Food Supply Chain: Addressing Food Fraud Vulnerabilities
International and intergovernmental organizations, as well as domestic regulatory bodies, support food fraud mitigation and prevention, and a growing corpus of research is focusing on these issues. However, the food sector is ultimately responsible for establishing mechanisms that protect the integrity of their supply chains.
Legislation requires food enterprises to ensure the safety and quality of their products, which must not be labeled deceptively or misleadingly. In the United Kingdom, this is principally overseen by the Food Safety Act of 1990, which is enforced by the Food Standards Authority in England and Wales and Food Standards Scotland in Scotland.
Food fraud susceptibility occurs at weak spots in the supply chain where incentives or opportunities are increased or controls are insufficient. This vulnerability is influenced by a number of factors, including some commodity chains’ inherent susceptibility to food fraud, supply availability, and firm and industry characteristics that may raise the risk of fraudulent conduct. These influences include the economic climate, company culture, and the implementation of local food safety laws.
As a result, predicting where issues may arise requires a situational and structured approach that considers the larger environment and context of food chain actors, their markets, processes, products, and regional or sector-specific countermeasures and control systems. Few other corporate contexts have such a diversified set of characters and power relations, and the incentives for engaging in criminal activity can vary greatly. Economic, social, and cultural elements form businesses, and individuals may engage in criminal behavior, whether motivated by pure financial greed or as a desperate reaction to market and supply chain pressures.
Addressing Food Fraud Vulnerabilities in Seafood Supply Chains
Food fraud vulnerability assessments (FFVAs) are systematic evaluations of numerous aspects of a business environment or supply chain to identify and prioritize weaknesses. Food fraud vulnerability is defined by the Global Food Safety Initiative as ‘the susceptibility or exposure to a food fraud risk, which is seen as a gap or deficit that could place consumer health at risk if not addressed.’ There are several tools available for conducting FFVAs, including the SSAFE FFVA tool, the Food Fraud Advisor’s Vulnerability Assessment Tool, and the EMAlert—Economically Motivated Adulteration Vulnerability Assessment Tool.
Although these instruments were designed for company-level assessment, their use in country- and sector-level analysis is well documented in the literature. Academics and others have used and adapted vulnerability assessments to examine fraud drivers, enablers, and control mechanisms across industries, actor groups, and geographical areas. Examples include spice assessments, various supply chains, Dutch milk, olive oil, Chinese milk, Chinese rice, food service, and organic sectors. These findings are summarised in a recent publication, which emphasizes the consensus that vulnerability assessments in the seafood sector could help in identifying, reduce, or eliminate fraudulent possibilities inside seafood supply chains. In-depth food fraud assessments for seafood have yet to be undertaken in the UK or elsewhere, and this study intends to rectify this.
Analyzing the Vulnerabilities
Comparing correlations between food fraud vulnerability and previous food fraud incidences can provide useful information. For example, supply chain sectors or goods that are both highly vulnerable and have a history of severe fraud should be extensively examined and identified as potential targets for countermeasure implementation. In contrast, areas of vulnerability without a history of recorded fraud may indicate rising concerns. This study investigates the food fraud vulnerabilities in the cod, prawn, and salmon supply chains, taking into account various business features, and investigates how these vulnerabilities link to previous criminal behavior in these industries.
Conclusion
Fraud vulnerabilities were analyzed for 32 organizations, and the frequencies of high, medium, and low vulnerability responses were determined. Vulnerability profiles based on opportunities, motivations, and controls were examined throughout the dataset. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was utilized to investigate groupings within the data, and vulnerability differences were measured by commodity, supply chain node, firm size, and certification status.
The study found that the most prevalent response was low vulnerability, accounting for 45% of all replies, followed by medium vulnerability (28%), and high vulnerability (27%). Technical changes had the greatest frequency of high-vulnerability responses, whereas time and space opportunities had the least vulnerability. Motivations had the fewest number of high-vulnerability responses. Notably, the perception of vulnerability for raw products was substantially greater (low 16%, medium 9%, high 75%) than the availability, technology, and expertise to adulterate final products (low 32%, medium 23%, high 45%), even in processing phases when there are numerous potential for adulteration.
The prospect of impurity in the final product form suggests that fraud may occur on-site. Other research on food fraud vulnerability has found that respondents are more cautious when asked questions about their organization, and internal dangers may be more difficult to understand than external ones. Both raw and end goods had high vulnerability detection ratings (66% and 71%, respectively), indicating the difficulty of detecting fish fraud.
Opportunities for fraud in time and place were perceived as less vulnerable than technical opportunities. Production lines, where applicable, operated with high levels of control and minimal opportunity for unauthorized interference (low 71%, medium 19%, high 10%). Given the complexity of seafood supply chains, respondents felt they had good insight into their suppliers and customers, characterized by longstanding, trusted relationships (low 88%, medium 6%, high 6%). It was not perceived that fraudulent reports of raw or final products for cod, salmon, or prawns were commonly reported, with over 60% of respondents rating low vulnerability for these fraud factors. This perception contrasts with the levels of fraud evidenced in literature and media.
