Food Fraud Database Background and Record Types

An incident is a documented occurrence of food fraud in a food ingredient or product within a defined timeframe. Incidents are often reported in the media and tend to include contextual and supporting information about the perpetrator, motive, geographic location, and/or other characteristics.

An inference record is documentation of probable knowledge of food fraud adulteration without sufficient documentation to be classified as an incident. Often, an inference record is created from published research conducted to develop detection methods for adulterants in particular ingredients. Inference records are also created to document the specific combinations of ingredients and adulterants resulting from general surveillance testing in the marketplace.

A surveillance record documents a report of sampling and testing of foods or ingredients in specified geographic locations or at multiple points along the supply chain to gain knowledge about the scope of fraud. This type of market sampling is typically conducted by regulatory agencies, trade organizations, or other interest groups, and may also occur as part of published research regarding analytical detection methods.

A method record provides information on an analytical method for detecting food adulteration or authenticating food ingredients that has been published in a scholarly report.