The European Commission have now published their most recent report on agri-food fraud suspicions, which covers the month of July.

The Official Control Regulation requires Member States organising risk-based controls to identify and combat fraudulent and deceptive practices along the agri-food chain.

These monthly reports include ‘non-compliances with fraud suspicions’ of cross-border nature identified and shared between members of the Alert and Cooperation Network (ACN) and retrieved from its three components: the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed network (RASFF), the Administrative Assistance and Cooperation network (AAC) and the Agri-Food Fraud Network (FFN).

Non-compliances with fraud suspicions affecting one single Member State are not shared in the ACN and therefore not reported within these monthly reports.

The monthly reports cover food, feedingstuff, materials and articles intended to come into contact directly or indirectly with food, animal welfare issues for farmed animals, plant protection products, veterinary medicinal products and other inputs that may end in the form of residues and contaminants in food and feed.

The monthly reports do not reconcile data and suspicions related to the following subjects:

• animal and plant health,
• release into the environment of Genetically Modified Organisms,
• animal welfare for companion animals,
• placing on the market and use of plant protection products, veterinary medicinal products and other inputs that are not ending as residues and contaminants in food and feed, and
• animal by-products and derived products when they not intended to be used for oral feeding to animals.

This latest report highlights 136 suspicions, which includes 27 records of suspected record tampering, 53 records of suspected product tampering, and 56 other non-compliances.

You can access the report here