Analyses of Food Supply Chains for Risks and Resilience to Food Fraud/Crime

随着食品供应链日益全球化和复杂化，新的和具有挑战性的风险已经出现。一个引起业界、政府、监管机构和消费者组织关注的风险是为了经济利益而进行的食品欺诈。英国食品标准局表示，食品欺诈是指“为了经济利益，故意将食品投放市场，意图欺骗消费者”。虽然食品欺诈的种类很多，但主要有两种：(1)销售不适合食用的食品；(2)故意对食品作虚假描述。这两种类型都可能直接威胁人体健康。例如，在中国，一种致癌毒素（三聚氰胺）被添加到牛奶和婴儿配方奶粉中，以增加其蛋白质含量。此外，将一种鱼类与另一种鱼类交换可能会使消费者接触到不同的过敏原，从而导致他们生病。在许多情况下，食品欺诈会降低消费者对食品工业和食品安全的信任，并对销售产生负面影响，正如英国马肉丑闻所证明的那样。人们越来越担心，在某些方面，食品欺诈可能比传统的食品供应威胁更危险，因为在这些活动中使用的掺假剂往往是非常规的。例如，在2007年之前，三聚氰胺并未被视为食品供应中的潜在污染物，因此不包括在例行质量检查中。此外，目前的食品保护系统并不是为了寻找食品供应中可能出现的无穷无尽的潜在掺假而设计的。由于犯罪活动的设计是为了逃避侦查，因此需要新的工具和新的供应链管理方法。建议将心理学、政治经济学、社会学、人类学、犯罪学、法学等学科的理论和方法与自然科学学科相结合。为了开发新的方法来检测食品供应链中可能的犯罪活动，该项目将与最容易发生食品欺诈的三个食品链（小麦、鱼和红肉）的主要买家、经纪人、监管机构、客户等进行34-40次半结构化访谈。这将有助于我们确定欺诈是如何发生的，以及可以采取哪些措施来防止未来发生欺诈。此外，使用基于桌面的方法，我们将探讨其他国家如何处理食品安全问题，并分析与欺诈有关的法律案件。基于欺诈者将利用任何情报收集系统的假设，我们将检查当前和潜在的数据收集和情报共享模型，并测试其对未来欺诈性攻击的脆弱性。这将有助于开发一种更强大、更安全的新型数据收集共享系统。通过评估用于欺诈、食品污染物和新出现的食品问题的一些风险排名方法，我们将开发一个风险排名框架，对我们选择的供应链中不同食品的食品安全风险进行分类和突出。这将有助于识别和优先考虑实施欺诈的动机/压力、实施欺诈的机会以及为欺诈辩护的态度/合理化。在风险评估程序中也将进行成本效益排序。最后，根据本项目收集的数据和之前的食品欺诈报告，我们将确定向公众展示欺诈检测/预防策略的方法。我们还将利用消费者的八个焦点小组来调查他们对食品欺诈的看法、态度、行为意图、信任参数和期望。根据调查结果，我们将进行一项调查（来自不同社会人口群体的1000名18岁以上的英国消费者），以实验方式测试不同欺诈预防策略对增强消费者信任和增加销售的影响的有效性和可行性。

As food supply chains have become increasingly global and complex, new and challenging risks have emerged. One of the risks gaining attention from industry, governments, regulatory bodies and consumer organisations is food fraud conducted for economic gain. The Food Standards Agency says that Food fraud is committed 'when food is deliberately placed on the market, for financial gain, with the intention of deceiving the consumer'. Although there are many kinds of food fraud the two main types are: (1) the sale of food which is unfit for consumption and (2) the deliberate misdescription of food. Both types may directly threaten human health. For example, a cancer causing toxin (called melamine) was added to milk and infant formula in China to increase its protein content. Additionally, swapping one fish species with another could expose consumers to different allergens which could make them sick. In many instances, food fraud can reduce consumer trust in the both the food industry and food safety, and negatively impact on sales, as was demonstrated in the UK horsemeat scandal.There is a growing concern that in some ways food fraud may be more risky than traditional threats to the food supply as the adulterants used in these activities are often unconventional. Melamine for example was not considered a potential contaminant in the food supply before 2007 and hence was not included in routine quality checks. In addition, current food protection systems are not designed to look for the never-ending number of potential adulterants that may show up in the food supply. As criminal activity by design is intended to elude detection, new tools and new approaches to supply chain management are called for. This proposal suggests combining theories and methods from psychology, political economy, sociology, anthropology, criminology and law, with natural science disciplines.In order to develop new approaches to detect possible criminal activity in food supply chains, this project will undertake 34-40 semi-structured interviews with major buyers, brokers, regulators, customers etc. relating to the three food chains which are most prone to food fraud (wheat; fish and red meat). This will help us to determine how fraud can happen and what measures could be put in place to prevent it from happening in the future. Furthermore, using a desk-based approach we will explore how other countries deal with issues of food safety and analyse legal law cases as they relate to fraud. Based on an assumption that fraudsters WILL exploit any intelligence gathering system we will examine current and potential models of data collection and intelligence sharing and test their vulnerabilities to future fraudulent attacks. This will help to develop a novel data collection sharing system that is more robust and secure.By evaluating a number of risk ranking methodologies used for fraud, food contaminants and emerging food issues, we will develop a risk ranking framework, to classify and highlight food security risks for different food commodities in our chosen supply chains. This will help recognise and prioritise the incentives/pressures to commit fraud, opportunities to commit fraud, and attitudes/rationalisations to justify fraud. A cost-benefit ranking will also be conducted in the risk assessment procedures. Finally, based on the data gathered for this project and a previous food fraud report we will identify methods of presenting fraud detection/prevention strategies to the public. We will also utilise eight focus groups with consumers to investigate their perceptions, attitudes, behavioural intentions, trust parameters, and expectations in relation to food fraud. Based on the findings we will conduct a survey (with 1000 UK consumers aged 18+ from different socio-demographic groups) to experimentally test the efficacy and feasibility of different fraud prevention strategies for its impact on enhancing consumer trust and increasing sales.