Big news for small businesses in the fight against food fraud

I write often about the dark and complex topic of food fraud, particularly the risks it brings and the multiple ways such criminal activity can manifest and destroy businesses and lives. As the world faces ever-growing challenges in terms of food security, the opportunities for fraud continually mount. But for once I can write about the UK being world-leading in something – and this claim is backed by hard facts.

Following the 2013 Horsemeat Scandal two major initiatives emerged: the formation of the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and its counterpart, the Food Crime and Incidents Unit, in Scotland; and the Food Industry Intelligence Network (fiin).

Very recently the NFCU was granted additional investigatory powers to tackle food fraud, a crucial step forwards in the fight against criminals operating in the food space. But perhaps of even greater significance is fiin’s announcement this week of another hugely important initiative that will serve to protect thousands of food businesses and their customers.

But before I reveal details of this bold new move, a few steps back in terms of what fiin is… I describe it as a truly world-leading network of nearly 70 large and medium-sized food businesses spanning retail, food service and food manufacturing. Sharing highly confidential information about their food authenticity testing programmes, fiin has become the world’s largest repository of food authenticity analysis in the world. Not only is the information shared among all the member companies but also with regulatory agencies in the UK and Ireland (FSA and FSAI). This has made cheating any of the member businesses an extremely risky pastime for the criminal elements I referred to. The manner in which fiin has increased its membership base and activities since its inception 10 years ago is truly something to celebrate.

 Over this decade of progress I have acted as an adviser and sometimes a critical friend to the organisation. I recently challenged the fiin Board to consider how its members – who have the technical resources and budgets to be part of fiin and conduct audits and testing programmes – could help prevent criminals from penetrating the many thousands of small food businesses across the nation that lack such resources.

This was not a straightforward ask, and I must admit to not having a clear view of how this could be achieved. But as fiin has continually done over the past decade, it has risen to the challenge and developed what I believe is an ingenious solution: fiin has today launched a resource hub to help small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) identify and manage potential food fraud risks within their supply chains.

One of the most important features of this hub is fiin’s Commodity Watchlist – a regularly updated list of food categories flagged for increased scrutiny. This list is shaped by quarterly reviews of aggregated, anonymised data from fiin members and analysed by fiin’s Technical Steering Group, a panel of cross-category industry experts.

The new hub also offers other important information such as food fraud definitions and examples; fraud prevention guides and training materials; practical, SME-friendly tools; news and events, and food-fraud reporting channels. In short, a comprehensive and highly valuable range of support tools.

I strongly encourage all food SMEs to join the hub and make the very most of this free-to-use and informative resource. The link to the site is here.

My message to these thousands of SMEs is that you are helping protect your business that you work so hard to keep afloat in extremely challenging times and you are also safeguarding your customers from criminal activity. It’s a win-win for SMEs and a lose-lose for the bad actors out there.