Fake Food: When Food Companies Mislead Consumers

by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

"It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

— Abraham Lincoln

When it comes to fraudulent food in the marketplace, Lincoln's sage observation has certainly rung true. In the Food and Drug Administration's experience, when hucksters try to cheat Americans out of millions of dollars of genuine foods, their schemes are ultimately exposed — by a sharp-eyed consumer, a competitive industry, or FDA itself.

Known as economic adulteration of food, this practice involves using inferior, cheaper ingredients to cheat consumers and undercut the competition. And even though the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act specifically bans it, economic adulteration persists, challenging FDA's resourcefulness to remain vigilant against it.

In recent years, FDA has sought and won convictions against companies and individuals engaged in making and selling bogus orange juice, apple juice, maple syrup, honey, cream, olive oil, and seafood.

According to Martin Stutsman, a consumer safety officer in FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, FDA relies heavily on industry and consumers to help identify instances of economic fraud.

In addition, he says, FDA is helping to develop sophisticated laboratory tests and compiling computerized pictorial databases to help industry and consumers determine whether the products they buy are authentic.

Stutsman explains that while the agency has fewer resources to monitor the sale of fraudulent food products, it is working with states and local governments and industry and responding to consumer complaints to weed out such practices.

"It's not a major problem," says Allen Matthys, Ph.D., vice president of regulatory affairs for the National Food Processors Association, "but it is a problem. It's one of those things that keeps bothering you."

An Economic Issue

Economic food fraud involves substituting something of lesser value for something of higher value and then passing off the product as one of higher value — for example, adding coloring to trout and falsely calling it salmon (a more expensive product) or substituting corn syrup for orange juice concentrate (a more expensive ingredient) to make what will be falsely labeled 100-percent pure orange juice.

One of the earliest adulterants was water. "That's one reason FDA exists," says Ben Canas, a food adulterant chemist in FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, alluding to the 1938 federal law, which was enacted partly in response to public concerns about use of water to adulterate such foods as milk.

Rarely do the adulterants present a health hazard. "This is an economic issue," Stutsman says, explaining that the practice cheats consumers out of their money.

"No one wants to pay for something they're not getting," says Robert Reeves, president of the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils.

Also, cheaper adulterated products labeled as authentic undercut legitimate industry's prices, making it difficult for honest companies to compete in the marketplace and recoup the expenses they've incurred.

The primary motive in selling a fraudulent food is "greed," says Sandra Williams, a compliance officer in FDA's Detroit district office. "If you sell a product of a lesser value at a higher price, you'll make money."

According to FDA investigations, some companies and individuals have made hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars off of their fraudulent foods. The agency estimated that in one fraud case, a Midwestern orange juice manufacturer defrauded consumers of more than $45 million during an estimated 20-year period. Another orange juice company and its president netted $2 million in two years by substituting invert beet sugar for frozen orange juice concentrate. Still another orange juice manufacturer saw its earnings rise from zero in the company's second year of operation to $57 million in its fifth year before being convicted and sentenced for adulterating orange juice concentrate with liquid beet sugar. A family owned honey- and syrup-making business netted nearly $500,000 from its bogus products between 1993 and 1995.

FDA learns about most cases of economic food adulteration from industry members, who become suspicious of products being offered at prices below fair market value. Many companies also test incoming food ingredients in a laboratory to make sure they're getting what they ordered. When they're not, according to Reeves, word quickly gets around to other industry people and FDA.

In 1996, for example, manufacturers of apple juice products informed FDA of reports that an apple juice concentrate imported from Europe and widely used in the U.S. industry contained hydrolyzed inulin syrup in place of some of the apple juice concentrate. While the product, a high-fructose syrup, was not considered a health hazard, FDA, with industry, began random sampling of apple juice products nationwide to determine whether any products labeled as apple juice on the U.S. market contained hydrolyzed inulin syrup. FDA also tested hydrolyzed inulin syrup and pure apple juice to help verify the accuracy of laboratory tests developed for detecting this high-fructose syrup. According to FDA's Stutsman, these efforts facilitated the quick identification and voluntary removal of adulterated products from U.S. grocery shelves.

About the Author

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FDA is A United States government body that oversees medical devices, including contact lenses, intraocular lenses, excimer lasers and eyedrops. In the US, these products must be approved by the FDA before they can be marketed.