What are the trends of food frauds in the Indian markets?

What are the trends of food frauds in the markets?

There are many types of food frauds seen in the markets. Food frauds can be defined as intentional substitution, dilution, or addition of inferior substances to food or removal of valuable ingredients from food to degrade it, or misrepresentation of the food for unjust financial gain. Fraud can occur in the raw material, an ingredient, the final product, or the food’s packaging. Types of food frauds are shown in figure 1. Some examples are the addition of melamine to milk products to increase the protein content in China in 2008, the substitution of processed beef with horsemeat in the UK, etc.

Figure 1: Types of food frauds

Probably, the most dangerous and harmful to health is adulteration which can be defined as intentionally debasing the quality of food offered for sale either by the admixture or substitution /dilution with inferior substances or by the removal of some valuable ingredient. For example, in cooked foods such as chicken fries, biryani, chips, spices (cardamom, chili, turmeric, etc.), artificial coloring should not be added, pesticides should not be added in excess, and formalin should not be added to prevent fish spoilage.  In sweets, for example, Laddu, artificial colors can be added only up to 100 ppm. But food business operators are adding more color than the amount mentioned for commercial profit. The above offenses are criminal offenses punishable by a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh and imprisonment for life under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006. Similarly, adding water to milk, adding ghee to margarine, animal fats, palm oil, palm kernel oil, and other low-quality oils to coconut oil, adding jaggery and other sugary solutions to honey, adding saffron to nuts, adding papaya seeds to pepper, etc. The above is punishable under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006, a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

There is another case of fraud activity by exaggerating the quality of the products, giving false claims, etc. for example use of certain oils can reduce diabetes, is very good for the heart, and the consumption of certain products can lead to rapid elevation increased memory and intelligence. This is a misleading advertisement offense punishable by a fine of Rs 10 lakh under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006. It is also an offense to misrepresent a food item to consumers. For example, what we get from the market under the name of Cinnamon is often a product called cassia. The difference between both can be identified from figure 2

Figure 2: Difference between cassia and cinnamon

In this way, counterfeit coins are used to mislead consumers and make unjust financial gains. The label of a food item packaged as per the Food Safety and Standards  Authority of India (fssai) instructions should contain at least twelve important information such as manufacturing date, expiry date, and FSSAI license number, batch number, etc. Under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006, misbranding is punishable by a fine of up to Rs 3 lakh. The above-mentioned food frauds are mainly found in the food industry in India today. Even though such hypocrisy is still going on in our society in many ways, it is possible to control them well with the proper intervention of the fssai.