The Food Fraud Network – Background and types of cases exchanged
The EU Food Fraud Network (FFN) is comprised of 28 national food fraud contact points which are the authorities designated by each EU Member States for the purposes of ensuring cross-border administrative assistance and cooperation, where action is required in more than one Member State, on matters that relate to potential fraudulent deceptive practices (“food fraud”). These national contact points are liaison bodies in the meaning of Article 35 of Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 and are called food fraud contact points (FFCPs). The FFN enables exchanges on potential food fraud cases and also serves as a forum for discussion on the coordination and prioritisation of action at EU level on “food fraud” matters.
In 2014, interaction on 60 cases took place through the Network. As shown in the chart, alleged violations were mostly related to labelling non-compliances (for instance with regard to durability dates, addition of water or ingredients), falsified certification and/or documents and substitution, such as replacement of a higher value species with a lower value species.
