Health FraudCommercial Fraud
Food fraud is divided into two types: health fraud (they affect the health of the consumer) and commercial fraud (they harm him only economically).
Health Fraud
These are facts that make food substances harmful and harm public health.
They can be committed by “anyone who holds for trade or places on the market or distributes for consumption, water, substances or things that have been poisoned, adulterated or counterfeited by others in a way dangerous to public health”. (articles 442 and 444 of the Criminal Code).
The crime is also committed for the mere fact of displaying (placing on the market) dangerous substances, even if they have not yet been sold, or even if it is a matter of distribution.
A classic example of sanitary fraud is the adulteration of wine with methanol or of milk with melamine.
Commercial Fraud
(Article 515 of the Criminal Code)
Commercial fraud damages the contractual and property rights of the consumer.
This is the case in which, in the exercise of a commercial activity, the “delivery to the buyer of one thing for another, or different from that declared or agreed by origin, provenance, quality or quantity” takes place.
There is no alteration of the quality of the food such as to make it harmful, but an illicit profit to the detriment of the consumer.
To configure a commercial fraud, even a small difference in the origin of the product or the provenance, or in the preparation system, or in the quantity (typical case is the so-called “sale for tare goods”, as when the butcher weighs cunningly the sliced without subtracting the tare from the card “).
One of the most widespread commercial fraud concerns rice : the producer can play on the percentage of broken grains (maximum limit of 5% set by law), or on their quality (grains of less valuable varieties) or origin.
In the first half of 2000 alone, as many as 590 of the 4,802 food companies and catering establishments controlled by the Central Inspectorate for repression of fraud of the Mipaf (about 12.3 per cent), were found guilty of sophistication, adulteration, cheating.
The record of infringements among products certainly belongs to rice , with 29.2% of the samples examined irregular, followed by milk and cheeses (18.8% of the samples outside the norm), by vegetable preserves (16.8% ), liqueurs and spirits (13.6%), honey (12.9%), olive oils (10.1%) and seed oils (9.5%), wine, musts and vinegars (9.1%), from flours and pastes (8.1%).
Let’s see some examples:
Buffalo mozzarella produced with cow’s milk added to buffalo milk.
Honey, a food at risk of both commercial fraud (wildflower marketed as single flower) and health (that coming from non-EU countries often contains phytosanitary residues not allowed in Italy but allowed in producing countries).
Olive oil: adding a few grams of chlorophyll (a natural pigment) to hazelnut or peanut oil you get a product very similar to the original. Olive oils from other countries, such as Tunisia or Spain, are frequently traded as Italians. The same goes for tomatoescanned and for vegetable preserves.
Balsamic vinegar of Modena that comes from Afragola.
There are also many tricks for typical products: in the case of cheeses, a Roman company has become a leader in Lazio thanks to a Norcia cheese that had nothing to do with the Umbrian town.
Also beware of Chinese restaurants, in some cases they have used genetically modified soy without notifying customers.
The list of food frauds discovered by the NAS (Carabinieri Anti-Sophistication Unit) does not stop there; then let’s see further examples:
Cheeses
* cheeses made with reconstituted milk powder (permitted in other countries);
* pecorino cheeses containing more or less high percentages of cow’s milk ;
* buffalo mozzarella containing more or less high percentages of cow’s milk;
* attribution of the designation of doc cheese to common cheeses;
* sale of cheeses of different origin, and perhaps foreign, as typical or with denomination of origin .
Milk
* different fat content than declared;
* rehabilitation treatments not allowed;
* fresh milk obtained from previously pasteurized milks ;
* milk obtained from the reconstitution of powdered milk .
Honey
* addition of sugars of other origins ;
* sale of honey of a botanical origin other than that declared;
* sale of non-EU honeys for Italian honeys .
Oil
* extra virgin olive oil containing refined oils, both olive and seed;
* oils with analytical contents that do not meet the requirements of EU regulations;
* variously colored seed oils that can be passed off as olive oils .
Pasta
* use of floursoft wheat (compromises the organoleptic qualities of the pasta);
* use of other less expensive cereals (and consequent qualitative decay);
* use of poor quality or damaged semolina;
* addition of dyes or chemical additives to imitate special pasta or egg pasta or to mask the type of flour used .
Rice
* variety of lesser value than that indicated;
* mixture of different varieties;
* sale of rice from abroad as if it were a national product;
* badly selected rice with the addition of broken grains and foreign elements, badly preserved or old .
Eggs
* eggsbearing a preferable consumption date of more than 28 days allowed;
* different eggs by weight category ;
* eggs stored in the fridge and sold as fresh .
Wines
* wines obtained from the fermentation of sugars of a different nature from those of grapes (a practice prohibited in Italy);
* addition of prohibited substances: alcohol , anti-fermentation, flavoring, coloring agents;
* lower quality than that declared on the label;
* excess sulfur dioxide or lower alcohol content than expected.