Food fraud can be simple deception, like diluting wine with fruit juice — but it can also be complex and deadly.
From prawns plumped up with gel to wine watered down with fruit juice, food fraud is a growing problem that costs producers in Australia billions. Longer and more complex supply chains mean even the products at your local supermarket could be affected, despite advances in detection technology. It could be a vintage bottle of wine diluted with grape juice, 'saffron' rice made from synthetic colourants, or 'king prawns' with added jelly-like substances.
A 2021 report by AgriFutures found food fraud was costing producers globally around $40 to 50 billion a year, and $2 to 3 billion in Australia alone, without accounting for the vast scale of undetected fraud. Associate professor in food microbiology at UNSW Julian Cox said there is "not a lot" consumers without expert knowledge of a product can do to detect food fraud.