"fraud" news and stories

While organic food producers must follow certification standards, fraud is on the rise. After all, organic foods can cost up to two or three times more than conventionally grown products, meaning some unscrupulous producers are bound to be looking to line their pockets.

Now, the New York Times reports that scientists are investigating the feasibility of lab testing organic foods to keep companies honest.

German scientists have found that organic milk has higher levels of a certain fatty acid than regular milk, a result of different cattle feeding practices. Labs can reliably discern which milk is organic by testing for this fatty acid. And we've already seen that it's possible to test for the presence of non-organic, synthetic fertilizers in fruits and vegetables, but the high cost of testing means the practice is unlikely to be implemented on a large scale.

While this is all preliminary stuff, it will be interesting to see whether we eventually find more "organic markers" to test food, and whether buyers will find this worthwhile.

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There are many instances of non-food items being found in food, far more than the ones we have mentioned here, but did you know that there are dedicated task forces employed by restaurant chains to investigate claims?

When something unfortunate happens in the kitchen, restaurants don't want it to affect the customers' overall experience. If it does, they want to offer a settlement ASAP to show their good will and to keep the story out of the new, if at all possible. Usually employees can verify an incident, as can delivery records, etc. This option is often coupled with a non-disclosure agreement, which means that far fewer incidents make the papers than really happen.

Some of the stories make it into the papers regardless of what the restaurant tries to do and, not infrequently, they inspire copycats. The copycats attempt to plant things in their food and defraud the restaurants, so for every incident that is reported, the company's investigators are called in. Eyewitness testimony and scientific evidence can prove an incident to be fake, as it was in the case with the mouse "found" in soup at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. In these cases, no settlement is offered (though the offenders in this particular example bizarrely tried to get the restaurant to pay them to not admit they tried to defraud them) and the scammers end up serving time.

The incidents are unfortunate, but a finger in your food isn't a crime unless you planted it there. Otherwise, it's just bad PR.

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The Independent has an article about people committing food fraud--making meals using ready-made packages and passing it off as their own creation. They say that 40% of young women have done this, as compared to only 22% of young men. The survey strikes a chord with the older generations--are the younger generations simply incompetent in life skills? Should home economics be reinstated to teach these essentials?

I don't know anyone who has ever tried to commit food fraud--in fact, I feel that cooking is actually making a comeback amongst the young people in the US. But perhaps I'm hanging out with a skewed crowd. What do you think? Is the next generation simply an instant meal kind of crowd?

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