Is extending the shelf-life of frozen fruits food fraud?

Hello, 

Regarding extending shelf life on frozen fruits, is it considered food fraud to extend frozen fruit shelf life if quality and micro testing is completed before doing so?  I know frozen fruits technically have no used by date or expiration date, they have a best by date. Anyone have thoughts on this?  

Thanks,

Nicole

I would say that this is more of a food quality than a food safety issue. I am unsure if I would consider this a Food Fraud issue unless the contract or product specification states that the frozen fruit be under a certain age or be free of freezer burn.

Hello, 

 

Regarding extending shelf life on frozen fruits, is it considered food fraud to extend frozen fruit shelf life if quality and micro testing is completed before doing so?  I know frozen fruits technically have no used by date or expiration date, they have a best by date. Anyone have thoughts on this?  

 

Thanks,

Nicole

Hi Nicole,

So what is your/USA (FSMA?) intended interpretation of the Scope of Food Fraud ?? eg (1) Safety Only, (2)  "Implicit" Safety (eg GFSI) included, (3) Quality Only, (4) All 1-3 ? ?

IIRC, the "best by"  referred to in OP has no legal "associations". ?

(The US Policy(?) regarding date-marking, offhand, seems unusual (to me) however, as i understand, there are many Global variations).

Hello, 

 

Regarding extending shelf life on frozen fruits, is it considered food fraud to extend frozen fruit shelf life if quality and micro testing is completed before doing so?  I know frozen fruits technically have no used by date or expiration date, they have a best by date. Anyone have thoughts on this?  

 

Thanks,

Nicole

Hi Nicole,
The thing with food fraud questions is that, outside of the obvious adulteration/substitution stuff, many of them will be context-dependent.

In this case, is there an attempt at misrepresenting the product or one (or more) of its attributes for commercial gain?

If it is supplied under a contract/specification that says the fruit must be from a particular season's crop, or under a certain age, without informing the customer or indeed actively trying to obfuscate the truth then yes this probably is fraudulent - changing the dates to allow it to be sold is making money from a sale that potentially wouldn't occur if the real information had been presented.

However, approaching the sale more openly would not be fraudulent - with date problems on product types that are "best before" dated, I always advocate simply being open and honest with the customer. If it genuinely is suitable for extended shelf life and it can be legitimately justified then it should not be an issue (excepting certain retail co-packers where the ultimate customer sets strange minimum life requirements whilst publicly crowing about their commitment to reducing food waste ;) )

T

Are you changing the BB on existing product?????  Make sure that traceability is maintained if you have proven you can do this (if this is what is happening)

BB dates are not legislated in terms of length..........just make sure your decision to adjust is well documented and scientifically sound

On the surface the simple answer would be NO.

However, deeper looking could come up the potential for food fraud - example: you want to extend the best by date for what reason?  Let's say it is economic gain to your company because instead of dumping product you get to sell it and make money.

There could be some truth to potential food fraud, however is would be very slim.

Maybe the questioned needs re framing..........

Perhaps it should be, can i re-evaluated the current BB on my product...........to which they answer would be YES of course you can.  Every company in the world is trying to keep their product from either spoiling or degradation. 

Wanting to scientifically study your product for degradation of any kind of a set period of time is what SHOULD be done...........there are always changes in process/packaging/storage conditions etc which need to be looked at.............this isn't fraudulent, it's just good business

The frozen fruit would be used as rework or work in progress, mixed with "fresh" frozen fruit during production. This would only be done once we completed a quality and food safety analysis and approve for use to extend. 

Standard industry practice to clean up freezers.......as long as analysis is good, nothing foul afoot here

Don't know about USA opinion but I did notice this -

An initial estimation of the most common types of food fraud can be taken from the first ac-
tivity report of the European Commission’s newly founded Food Fraud Network. 60 cases
were evaluated in 2014 and the following types of food fraud identified in the European Union
(as percentages of reported cases):
 
  False labelling, e.g. with regard to the best-before date: 25 %  
  Falsed certification, e.g. feigning of a higher quality: 22 %
  Substitute ingredients, e.g. use of horse meat instead of beef: 17 %
  Banned ingredients: 10 %
  Banned processing methods and/or processes: 8 %
  Illegal products unfit for human consumption: 7 %
  Adulterated products/brands: 5 %
  Other: 5 %

 

Q and A -on-food-fraud-and-authenticity-testing,2016.pdf   32.26KB   18 downloads

Would be interesting to know how  a "false" BB date was quantified.

Interesting to note that "horsemeat" apparently remains in use as a "substitute"

As that was published by the BfR I wonder if there is an element of the distinction between BBE and Use By getting lost in translation?
In any case, notwithstanding the extensive discussion above about the legitimacy of extending BBEs where there is proper QA/scientific justification (which I fully agree with), I'm certainly aware of many cases of traders and agents simply slapping a new Best Before label on products in order to get a sale, without actually going through the process of assessing and determining suitability or having any data to substantiate it based on e.g. shelf life studies. I'd argue this is a "false" BBE as it only exists to generate the sale, and doesn't actually have any foundation related to the durability of the product.

As per my post above, this type of (potential) fraud is all about context - there is obviously no problem supplying product that has been deemed suitable for extension through an appropriate process and where this is done transparently and traceably and is in accordance with the agreed specification/contract of sale, but manipulating the shelf life specifically to win/retain business without any basis, and/or actively attempting to obfuscate the true nature of the product when to do otherwise would potentially lose business, can certainly cross the line into fraudulent.

Do dodgy garages still "clock" the odometer (wind back the mileage) on cars to sell them with a lower reported mileage? Manipulating BBE dates with underhand intentions is arguably analogous to that, IMO.