Integrity in the fresh produce supply chain: solutions and approaches to an emerging issue

ABSTRACT

Long supply and complex fresh produce supply chains provide opportunity for fraudulent activity to occur especially further processing or re-packing of products to mask opaque practice and non-compliant behaviour. Price premiums for products designated as ‘high-value’, for example, organic produce, produce of particular provenance, or geographical production area provides motivation for less scrupulous actors to present for sale, produce that is mislabelled or misrepresented. People integrity as well as data, product and process integrity are gaining wider attention in the horticultural sector. Types of fraud critiqued in this review paper include mislabelling, substitution or misrepresentation of origin (country or regional location), method of production (organic or conventional) or incorrect varietal declaration. These challenges and the existing and emerging technologies that are both used within a quality assurance programme and alternatively used by regulators when investigating potential instances of fraudulent behaviour are considered. New methodological solutions and approaches are emerging and such techniques will develop rapidly to meet the growing challenge of fraud and to ensure consumer trust in the industry is maintained especially as types of food fraud evolve and become more sophisticated.

KEYWORDS:

• Produce
• integrity
• food fraud
• substitution
• provenance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.