My company is IFS Food certified and as I was trying to explain again the meaning of Food Fraud to a supplier of packaging materials, I thought I would ask this questions here:
Am I the only one who notices that food packaging materials manufacturers/brokers have no idea what food fraud means and that they should also assess their own suppliers and raw materials to see how vulnerable they are to fraud?
The most common answer was "we don't do food, only packaging material" I started writing long emails explaining the terminology and my reason for asking and explaining about IFS v 6.1. Then the answer came :" we don't do anything". I know that this question sounds a little bit retorical, but if we as food producer companies are requested by a GSFI standard to assess the vulnerability of our packaging material suppliers to fraud (including if they have fraud control measures), then whey aren't these companies already asked to do a vulnerability assessment?
By the way, Food Fraud means : Food fraud is a collective term used to encompass the deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering, or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients, or food packaging; or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain.