23^rd International Conference on Food Fraud & Safety December 06-07, 2019 Montreal, Canada

Food fraud is the act of purposely altering, misrepresenting, mislabeling, substituting or tampering with any food product at any point along the farm–to–table food supply–chain. Fraud can occur in the raw material, in an ingredient, in the final product or in the food’s packaging

Biosensor is an analytical device that converts the biological reaction into electrical signals with the help of a transducer and generates real time Data. It is used detect analyte that interacts with the biological element associated with the transducer that gives out a measurable signal proportional to target analyte. The biological membranes can vary form microbes, cell organelles to nucleic acid. Transducer can be optical, electrochemicaldepending on the type of interaction with analyte.

Food safety requires fast effective real time methods to take the edge of adulteration, neurotoxins, pathogens, harmful chemicals, heavy metals etc. that affects humans, plants and animals. Biosensors in food safety can be a cost effective and time saving approach towards maintaining the international stands in food industries.

Food Safety Regulations. Modern day food safety regulations were developed on sound scientific principles to protect consumers from incidents of foodborne illness and death. ... With globalization, the supply chain must be carefully monitored to ensure imports meet food safety regulations and are free from tampering.

Facilities which prepare, handle or serve open hypothetically hazardous food should have an owner or employee who has been successfully completed an approved and accredited with food safety certification examination.

Foodservice business which serves "high risk" populations will be the first part of the industry required to fulfill with the new guidelines. At least one individual from each foodservice establishment should be certified in food safety techniques.

The original certificate is required to be maintained on site at the facility. It is the duty of the certified food supervisor to ensure that all employees have sufficient knowledge and are well trained in food safety as it recounts to their assigned duties which are framed by FDA (Food and drug administration) 

The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique was invented by kary B. Mullis in 1985, which helped scientist in making millions of copies of DNA, Which later had a wide spread usage in the many disciplines of life sciences from diagnostics of genetic disorders to identification of HIV in Human cells.

There is increase in demand for a real time technique in Food Industry for quality assurance of food, which can bypass microbial method as they consume more time. In this case PCR is playing a key role in detection of pathogens in food and minimizing the affect food borne illness.

PCR based methods in Food Microbiology led to the development of faster, much sensitive and more specific protocols. 

Quality management implementation it is a management technique to assure, to control and to monitor the product quality in order to ensure that the end product was manufactured with high quality the development of food safety is mandatory while quality assurance is voluntary. It is not the same to implement food safety such as: GMP, SSOP, HACCP and/or others, that assures the consumption of food is safe, than to implement quality assurance

Sustainability is a growing concern in the food industry. Sustainable food isn’t just about the food itself, it’s a combination of factors including how it’s produced, how it’s distributed and how it’s consumed.

Authentic food is food (or drink) that exactly meets its description and also meets a person’s reasonable assumption of its character. The labeling of food products is essential to inform consumers what kind of products they are buying.  Authenticity is a key requirement of all transactions; we all expect to receive the food or drink that we intended to purchase

Traceability is the ability to track any food through all stages of production. Traceability enables corrective actions (such as a product recall) to be implemented quickly and effectively when something goes wrong. An effective traceability system relies on being able to track product one step forward and one step back at any point in the supply chain.

Potential supply chain risks are identified by a systematic investigation of all factors (sources) that might lead to risks The consequence of each identified risk and its corresponding likelihood are determined by analysis the risks are prioritized based on their consequence and likelihood. For those risks that need to be addressed with action, mitigation strategies are developed in accordance to the objective of the supply chain

The plan must be designed to address the risk factors identified in the food fraud vulnerability assessment. It will be different for every company depending on the types of risks identified, as well as the nature of the companies’ ingredients, products, and geographic presence.

PwC can help you design and implement a food fraud risk mitigation plan, employing our extensive experience in risk assessment, internal controls and supplier management. Food fraud mitigation plan will address areas such as governance processes, company ethics, workplace culture, sourcing and supplier management, and controls over processing and distributing food to consumers.

Horizon Scan monitors commodity safety and integrity issues worldwide, collecting data daily from more than 100 food safety agencies and other reliable sources, delivering timely alerts on emerging food safety issues. It can help you to meet all consumer and regulatory demands for transparency and accountability across the ingredient supply chain, by identifying potential food safety threats before they become a problem.

The consumption of fresh cut produce continues to increase globally. Technological advancements have in turn aided in increased global production of fresh produce to meet the increasing demand. However, there is serious concern as to whether this increase in supply and demand is leading to safety issues, as showcased by the alarming number of outbreaks associated with fresh vegetables and fruits, in the US as well as globally. And also it is important for people to understand the activities contribute in the food industry for the safety of food and how they can decrease the risk of foodborne illness. From processes on the farm to practices in the kitchen

International Food Trade signs that food has gone international. More and more food is moving across borders for a combination of social, economic and technological reasons. Transportation has improved greatly, and better ways, such as freezing, have been found to preserve foods. Many developing nations were ready to sell the foods they were producing to obtain funds to continue building up their countries

Blockchain technology is a way of storing and sharing information across a network of users in an open virtual space. Blockchain technology allows for users to look at all transactions simultaneously and in real-time.Blockchain makes a supply chain more transparent at an all-new level. It also empowers the entire chain to be more responsive to any food safety disasters.Blockchain also allows specific products to be traced at any given time, which would help to reduce food waste. For instance, contaminated products can be traced easily and quickly, while safe foods would remain on the shelves and not be sent to landfills.

The process to ensure the security of food and drink from all forms of intentional malicious attack including ideologically motivated attack leading to contamination. Food Fraud is an important and evolving food industry focus. Even though the vast majority of these incidents do not have a health hazard in some ways they are more dangerous because the substances and actions are unknown and untraceable Food Fraud is the collective term encompassing the intentional substitution, addition, tampering or misrepresentation of food/feed, food/feed ingredients or food/feed packaging, labelling, product information or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain that could impact consumer health

Food fraud, including the more defined subcategory of economically motivated adulteration, is a food risk that is gaining recognition and concern. Regardless of the cause of the food risk, adulteration of food is both an industry and a government responsibility. Food safety, food fraud, and food defense incidents can create adulteration of food with public health threats. Food fraud is an intentional act for economic gain, whereas a food safety incident is an unintentional act with unintentional harm, and a food defense incident is an intentional act with intentional harm.