2 replies to this topic

[mtelander]

Good morning, Quality SME's,

   We are looking to build out a Country of Origin Risk Tracker for all of the raw materials we use. We are a dietary supplement manufacturer so the raw materials come from all over the world, either through a US based supplier or we are directly importing. Does anyone have any examples or feedback they could share on how they track information like this? How to determine what countries are the "highest risk" and why?

 

Thank you for your help and input!

[GMO]

I suppose there are several things to consider:

 

Risk of adulteration for economic gain.

Risk of ideological adulteration.

Risk of food safety incident.

Risk of supply interruption leading to one of the above.

 

This might be a helpful source:  Global Food Security Index (GFSI)

Here has a source of particularly vulnerable crops (which will in some ways link to some countries) Global food fraud surges in 2025

This might be a useful paper:  Current readiness on food fraud risk mitigation in developing countries: a review | Agriculture & Food Security | Full Text

This is Asia focused but may have some information:  content

This is UK focused:  Food Crime Strategic Assessment 2024 | Food Standards Agency

 

I also think it will be worth reviewing what comes in via horizon scanning and things like RASFF so you are constantly reviewing your risk assessment.

[TimG]

We have a country-based risk assessment for all incoming loads of honey. First, it assigns a high or low risk level based on historical data for adulteration (which countries fail adulteration testing at a higher rate, etc.). Technically I guess it also assigns VERY HIGH Risk, which are the countries we don't purchase from (China). The high-risk countries require extra documentation (NSF paperwork for sampling at point of origin, etc.) and also used to get pollen testing, although we now do pollen testing on all incoming loads.

Secondly, we annually review published lab reports that break down all non-compliant findings by COO in regard to pesticides, heavy metals, and antibiotics. We update our testing program based on those findings.