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AbstractSeafood fraud is a global concern. High-value products with a diversity of species, production methods and fishery origins provide a business environment that is both conducive to criminality and financially lucrative. However, there is scarce empirical evidence on the nature of seafood fraud. This study aims to increase the understanding of deceptive practices in the seafood industry, the crime commission process and to identify possible intervention points. Ten case studies that had resulted in successful prosecutions were analysed using performed crime scripts to understand the actors, resources, processes, fraud techniques, conditions and the payment, sale and distribution of illicit products through legitimate supply chains. The crime scripts for each fraud were created using open-source intelligence, including media sources, publicly available court filings and company records. Similar to other white-collar offences, fraud opportunity was facilitated by leveraging existing resources, relationships and industry reputation to enable and conceal fraudulent practices. In all cases, fraud was perpetrated by senior management, undermining internal control mechanisms. Other fraud enablers included the availability and pricing of substitute products, lack of end-to-end traceability and the inability of supply chain actors, including consumers, to detect fraud. Also notable was the extent of employee involvement, so this paper considers impediments to external disclosure, particularly for migrant workers. The study enriches the food fraud literature by using crime script analysis to understand preparation, execution, and opportunity structures of seafood fraud. By emphasising the nature of fraudulent activities in specific markets, rather than solely focusing on perpetrators, it offers a more comprehensive approach to understanding environmental and situational influences. These insights, scarce in the current literature, are vital for shaping effective intervention strategies.

Complexities in food supply chains were highlighted by the so called 'horsegate' crisis in 2013, where beef meat was fraudulently adulterated with horse meat causing widespread recalls and subsequent investigations across both retail and food service markets in the European Union (EU). The beef supply chain is a complex supply chain, with global (EU and Non EU) sourcing strategies in order to secure supply. However, managing these complex supply chains can be difficult and consequentially can expose vulnerabilities similar to that of horsemeat, where horsemeat was found in beef meat within EU supply chains. Six months after the crisis broke, an independent review into the integrity and assurance of food supply networks was commissioned by the UK government and undertaken by Professor Chris Elliott of Queen's University, Belfast. The review recommended eight pillars of food integrity to industry and government: consumers first, zero tolerance, intelligence gathering, laboratory services, audit, government support, leadership and crisis management. This article examines the extent to which these recommendations have been implemented using personal communications from Professor Chris Elliott and relevant industry bodies. Following the review, industry attitudes have changed substantially, testing and surveillance systems have been integrated into normal industry practice and the government is more prepared for future incidents through the establishment of the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU). Horsegate raised the profile of food fraud and crime in supply chains and despite improvements to date, further collaboration between industry and government is required in order to align fully with the recommendations.

Residues of veterinary medicines are a food safety issue regulated by European legislation. The occurrence of animal diseases necessitating application of veterinary medicines is significantly affected by global and local climate changes. This review assesses potential impacts of climate change on residues in food produced on the island of Ireland. Use of various classes of veterinary drugs in light of predicted local climate change is reviewed with particular emphasis on anthelmintic drugs and consideration is given to residues accumulating in the environment. Veterinary medicine use is predicted to increase as disease burdens increase due to varied climate effects. Locally relevant mitigation and adaptation strategies are suggested to ensure climate change does not adversely affect food safety via increasing drug residues.

Due to complex, valuable, and often extremely opaque supply chains, seafood is a commodity that has experienced a high prevalence of food fraud throughout the entirety of its logistics network. Fraud detection and prevention require an in-depth understanding of food supply chains and their vulnerabilities and risks so that food business operators, regulators, and other stakeholders can implement practical countermeasures. An analysis of historical criminality within a sector, product, or country is an important component and has not yet been conducted for the seafood sector. This study examines reported seafood fraud incidents from the European Union's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, Decernis's Food Fraud Database, HorizonScan, and LexisNexis databases between January 01, 2010 and December 31, 2020. Illegal or unauthorized veterinary residues were found to be the most significant issue of concern, with most reports originating from farmed seafood in Vietnam, China, and India. For internationally traded goods, border inspections revealed a significant frequency of reports with fraudulent or insufficient documentation, indicating that deceptive practices are picked up at import or export but are occurring further down the supply chain. Practices such as species adulteration (excluding veterinary residues), species substitution, fishery substitution, catch method fraud, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing were less prevalent in the databases than evidenced in the scientific literature. The analysis demonstrates significant differences in outcomes depending on source and underlines a requirement for a standardized and rigorous dataset through which food fraud can be scrutinized to ensure enforcement, as well as industry and research resources are directed accurately. Practical Application: Levels of historic food fraud in a product, sector, supply chain node or geographic location provide an indication of historic criminality, the methods used and the location of reported frauds. This study ...

Prior to 1985 the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated global food crop contamination with mycotoxins to be 25%. The origin of this statement is largely unknown. To assess the rationale for it, the relevant literature was reviewed and data of around 500,000 analyses from the European Food Safety Authority and large global survey for aflatoxins, fumonisins, deoxynivalenol, T-2 and HT-2 toxins, zearalenone and ochratoxin A in cereals and nuts were examined. Using different thresholds, i.e. limit of detection, the lower and upper regulatory limits of European Union (EU) legislation and Codex Alimentarius standards, the mycotoxin occurrence was estimated. Impact of different aspects on uncertainty of the occurrence estimates presented in literature and related to our results are critically discussed. Current mycotoxin occurrence above the EU and Codex limits appears to confirm the FAO 25% estimate, while this figure greatly underestimates the occurrence above the detectable levels (up to 60–80%). The high occurrence is likely explained by a combination of the improved sensitivity of analytical methods and impact of climate change. It is of immense importance that the detectable levels are not overlooked as through diets, humans are exposed to mycotoxin mixtures which can induce combined adverse health effects.

A rapid analytical method was developed and validated for the analysis of eight bound nitrofurans in animal tissue, shortening laboratory turnaround times from 4 to 2 days. The majority of methodologies for nitrofuran analysis focus on the detection of only four drugs (nitrofurantoin, furazolidone, furaltadone and nitrofurazone), and is time-consuming given the 16-h overnight derivatisation step and a double liquid-liquid extraction. In this study, the narrow scope of analysis was addressed by including further four important nitrofuran drugs (nifursol, nitrofuroxazide, nifuraldezone and nitrovin). Full chromatographic separation was achieved for the metabolites of all eight nitrofurans, using phenyl-hexyl column chemistry and a rigorous optimisation of the mobile phase additives and gradient profile. The conventional, lengthy sample preparation was substantially shortened by replacing the traditional overnight water bath derivatisation with a rapid 2-h microwave-assisted reaction, followed by a modified-QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe) extraction. This confirmatory method was fully validated in accordance with the new 2021/808/EC legislation, and was shown to perform satisfactorily when applied to incurred tissues. The decision limit (CCα) for the eight analytes ranged between 0.013 and 0.200 µg kg , showing abundant sensitivity given that the current RPA for nitrofurans is 0.5 µg kg . This innovative method can play a major role in the surveillance of the illegal use of nitrofuran drugs.

[Image: see text] Paramagnetic microspheres can be used in planar array fluorescence immunoassays for single or multiplex screening of food contaminants. However, no confirmation of the molecular identity is obtained. Coated blade spray (CBS) is a direct ionization mass spectrometry (MS) technique, and when combined with triple quadrupole MS/MS, it allows for rapid confirmation of food contaminants. The lack of chromatography in CBS, though, compromises the specificity of the measurement for unequivocal identification of contaminants, based on the European Union (EU) regulation. Therefore, a rapid and easy-to-use immuno-magnetic blade spray (iMBS) method was developed in which immuno-enriched paramagnetic microspheres replace the coating of CBS. The iMBS-MS/MS method was fully optimized, validated in-house following the EU 2021/808 regulation, and benchmarked against a commercial lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) for on-site screening of DA. The applicability of iMBS-MS/MS was further demonstrated by analyzing incurred mussel samples. The combination of immunorecognition and MS/MS detection in iMBS-MS/MS enhances the measurement's selectivity, which is demonstrated by the rapid differentiation between the marine toxin domoic acid (DA) and its structural analog kainic acid (KA), which cannot be achieved with the LFIA alone. Interestingly, this first-ever reported iMBS-MS/MS method is generic and can be adapted to include any other immuno-captured food contaminant, provided that monoclonal antibodies are available, thus offering a complementary confirmatory analysis approach to multiplex immunoassay screening methods. Moreover, thanks to its speed of analysis, iMBS-MS/MS can bridge the logistics gap between future large-scale on-site testings using LFIAs and classical time-consuming confirmatory MS analysis performed in official control laboratories.

Paramagnetic microspheres can be used in planar array fluorescence immunoassays for single or multiplex screening of food contaminants. However, no confirmation of the molecular identity is obtained. Coated blade spray (CBS) is a direct ionization mass spectrometry (MS) technique, and when combined with triple quadrupole MS/MS, it allows for rapid confirmation of food contaminants. The lack of chromatography in CBS, though, compromises the specificity of the measurement for unequivocal identification of contaminants, based on the European Union (EU) regulation. Therefore, a rapid and easy-to-use immuno-magnetic blade spray (iMBS) method was developed in which immuno-enriched paramagnetic microspheres replace the coating of CBS. The iMBS-MS/MS method was fully optimized, validated in-house following the EU 2021/808 regulation, and benchmarked against a commercial lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) for on-site screening of DA. The applicability of iMBS-MS/MS was further demonstrated by analyzing incurred mussel samples. The combination of immunorecognition and MS/MS detection in iMBS-MS/MS enhances the measurement's selectivity, which is demonstrated by the rapid differentiation between the marine toxin domoic acid (DA) and its structural analog kainic acid (KA), which cannot be achieved with the LFIA alone. Interestingly, this first-ever reported iMBS-MS/MS method is generic and can be adapted to include any other immuno-captured food contaminant, provided that monoclonal antibodies are available, thus offering a complementary confirmatory analysis approach to multiplex immunoassay screening methods. Moreover, thanks to its speed of analysis, iMBS-MS/MS can bridge the logistics gap between future large-scale on-site testings using LFIAs and classical time-consuming confirmatory MS analysis performed in official control laboratories.

A rapid analytical method was developed and validated for the analysis of eight bound nitrofurans in animal tissue, shortening laboratory turnaround times from 4 to 2 days. The majority of methodologies for nitrofuran analysis focus on the detection of only four drugs (nitrofurantoin, furazolidone, furaltadone and nitrofurazone), and is time-consuming given the 16-h overnight derivatisation step and a double liquid–liquid extraction. In this study, the narrow scope of analysis was addressed by including further four important nitrofuran drugs (nifursol, nitrofuroxazide, nifuraldezone and nitrovin). Full chromatographic separation was achieved for the metabolites of all eight nitrofurans, using phenyl-hexyl column chemistry and a rigorous optimisation of the mobile phase additives and gradient profile. The conventional, lengthy sample preparation was substantially shortened by replacing the traditional overnight water bath derivatisation with a rapid 2-h microwave-assisted reaction, followed by a modified-QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe) extraction. This confirmatory method was fully validated in accordance with the new 2021/808/EC legislation, and was shown to perform satisfactorily when applied to incurred tissues. The decision limit (CCα) for the eight analytes ranged between 0.013 and 0.200 µg kg(−1), showing abundant sensitivity given that the current RPA for nitrofurans is 0.5 µg kg(−1). This innovative method can play a major role in the surveillance of the illegal use of nitrofuran drugs. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00216-021-03763-0.

Chloramphenicol (CAP), a broad-spectrum antibiotic, was detected in several herb and grass samples from different geographic origins. Due to its suspected carcinogenicity and linkages with the development of aplastic anemia in humans, CAP is banned for use in food-producing animals in the European Union (EU) and many other countries. However, products of animal origin originating from Asian countries entering the European market are still found noncompliant (containing CAP) on a regular basis, even when there is no history of chloramphenicol use in these countries. A possible explanation for the continued detection of these residues is the natural occurrence of CAP in plant material which is used as animal feed, with the consequent transfer of the substance to the animal tissues. Approximately 110 samples were analyzed using liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometric detection. In 26 samples, the presence of CAP was confirmed using the criteria for banned substances defined by the EU. Among other plant materials, samples of the Artemisia family retrieved from Mongolia and from Utah, USA, and a therapeutic herb mixture obtained from local stores in the Netherlands proved to contain CAP at levels ranging from 0.1 to 450 µg/kg. These findings may have a major impact in relation to international trade and safety to the consumer. The results of this study demonstrate that noncompliant findings in animal-derived food products may in part be due to the natural occurrence of chloramphenicol in plant material. This has implications for the application of current EU, USA, and other legislation and the interpretation of analytical results with respect to the consideration of CAP as a xenobiotic veterinary drug residue and the regulatory actions taken upon its detection in food.

Background: The authenticity of foodstuffs and associated fraud has become an important area. It is estimated that global food fraud costs approximately $US49b annually. In relation to testing for this malpractice, analytical technologies exist to detect fraud but are usually expensive and lab based. However, recently there has been a move towards non-targeted methods as means for detecting food fraud but the question arises if these techniques will ever be accepted as routine. Scope and approach: In this opinion paper, many aspects relating to the role of non-targeted spectroscopy based methods for food fraud detection are considered: (i) a review of the current non-targeted spectroscopic methods to include the general differences with targeted techniques; (ii) overview of in-house validation procedures including samples, data processing and chemometric techniques with a view to recommending a harmonized procedure; (iii) quality assessments including QC samples, ring trials and reference materials; (iv) use of "big data" including recording, validation, sharing and joint usage of databases. Key findings and conclusions: In order to keep pace with those who perpetrate food fraud there is clearly a need for robust and reliable non-targeted methods that are available to many stakeholders. Key challenges faced by the research and routine testing communities include: a lack of guidelines and legislation governing both the development and validation of non-targeted methodologies, no common definition of terms, difficulty in obtaining authentic samples with full traceability for model building; the lack of a single chemometric modelling software that offers all the algorithms required by developers.

Background: The authenticity of foodstuffs and associated fraud has become an important area. It is estimated that global food fraud costs approximately $US49b annually. In relation to testing for this malpractice, analytical technologies exist to detect fraud but are usually expensive and lab based. However, recently there has been a move towards non-targeted methods as means for detecting food fraud but the question arises if these techniques will ever be accepted as routine. Scope and approach: In this opinion paper, many aspects relating to the role of non-targeted spectroscopy based methods for food fraud detection are considered: (i) a review of the current non-targeted spectroscopic methods to include the general differences with targeted techniques; (ii) overview of in-house validation procedures including samples, data processing and chemometric techniques with a view to recommending a harmonized procedure; (iii) quality assessments including QC samples, ring trials and reference materials; (iv) use of "big data" including recording, validation, sharing and joint usage of databases. Key findings and conclusions: In order to keep pace with those who perpetrate food fraud there is clearly a need for robust and reliable non-targeted methods that are available to many stakeholders. Key challenges faced by the research and routine testing communities include: a lack of guidelines and legislation governing both the development and validation of non-targeted methodologies, no common definition of terms, difficulty in obtaining authentic samples with full traceability for model building; the lack of a single chemometric modelling software that offers all the algorithms required by developers.