Probable food fraud and non-compliance with the European countries have continued to fall.
The number of reports reported was 214 in February 2025, which fell compared to 220 in January and 318 in February 2024.
Problems included are potential fraud. Non-compliance can evoke an establishment of research by authorities in the EU member states. Details come from a monthly report published by the European Commission.
Data includes suspected cross-border fraud subjects that are shared between members of the Alert and Cooperation Network (ACN) and picked up from the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (Rasff), Administrative Assistance and Collaboration Network (AAC) and the Agri-Food Fraud Network.
The data includes food, animal feed, food contact materials, animal welfare for cultivated animals, products for plant protection and products of veterinary medicine that end up as residues and contaminants in food and food.
The objectives are to help national authorities set up risk-based checks to combat fraudulent and misleading practices, to help the food sector with vulnerability assessments and identifying risks.
A total of 61 notifications mentioned fruit and vegetables, where the majority is non-compliance because of pesticides residues. Dietetical food, nutritional supplements and reinforced foods were second with 29 notifications and confectionery were third with 16.
Examples of detected non-compliants
Most problems were discovered by border inspections or market controls. On 13 occasions, the detection method was the internal check of a company and 14 times it was a complaint from the consumer. One incident came to light because of food poisoning and the other due to official checks in a non-European country. The concern was raised three times after whistleblower information.
The United States concerned eight reports in February. They include curcumin and titanium dioxide in food supplements, propylene oxide in walnuts and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in gummies and sweets.
Product -growing cases include ascorbic acid in tuna from Vietnam, Robusta beans in Arabica -coffee from the Netherlands, chlorate in poultry meat from Brazil and Sudan 4 in palm oil from Ivory Coast.
Record-tuning incidents include gluten in a gluten-free kebab and a nut mix, probable change of a best before date on tea from Luxembourg, and traceability defects on fishing products with France, Spain and the Netherlands.
One notification mentioned fake documents with regard to honey from the UK, while another stated falsification of the origin of cucumbers who came from Russia instead of Ukraine.
In the Netherlands, a horse that was unsuitable for human consumption was certified for slaughter. In Spain and Belgium there was a problem with traceability when 15 horses were found that were not registered.
A new food, Egusi ground melon seeds from Ghana, was polluted with Salmonella and Bacillus Cereus. There was a case of unsuitable transport conditions of kebab skewers in the Czech Republic and of illegal import of meat products from the UK to Belgium.
Various non-compliance ingredients mentioned that are not authorized in the EU, traceability defects, items that skip border controls, illegal input and pesticides above the maximum residents (MRL).
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