Food Quality Magazine
ISSUE 04 | OCTOBER 2015
Food Safety Certification, Food Fraud
& the Need to Certify Authenticity
Mitchell Weinberg, Esq., INSCATECH
We have all seen the food certification information that appears on
virtually every type of packaged
food. They (certifications) are numerous, imposing and informative.
Does anybody question what goes
into the various certifications we
see on food labels, especially those
that signify that food is safe? How
do companies earn or qualify to be
able to put certifications on their
labels? In most cases, we have no
idea. We trust the certification bodies to ensure that the companies
they certify are deserving of the
certification. But once a certification
body is accredited, how rigorous is
the accreditation body in its oversight of the certification body?
Our experience has shown that
accreditation bodies have minimally
invasive re-qualification criteria.
They typically require a payment and
a cursory review, but nothing more.
In truth, the entire certification process is rather formulaic. Passionless
auditors travel to food production
facilities around the world to check
off boxes in “one size fits all” audit
questionnaires. Rarely are the auditors asked the deeper, more relevant
questions that would point to the
“real goods” on food safety, and
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even more rarely are they qualified
to look beyond the questionnaire to
observe what is truly going on. Food
safety certifications have sadly become somewhat diluted by large audit
and certification firms, which in my
opinion represent a segment of the
food industry that is more concerned
with volume than it is with safety.
It’s interesting to note that in a field
which is heavily overpopulated, there has been one large gap in food
certification and that lies in the area
of authenticity. How do we know if a
food product is authentic and not a
counterfeit good that represents an
enormous abuse of the consumer’s
trust? What if it is not authentic? What if the product is entirely counterfeit, or what if authentic
ingredients have been replaced with
lower quality and lower cost ingredients over which there are no food
safety controls? As an experienced
investigator of the origin and quality of countless kinds of food from
around the world, I’ve found that the
manufacture, distribution and sale
of inauthentic or counterfeit items
is not only frequent, but it happens
with staggering regularity. What health risks are posed by the sale of
inauthentic food? The answer is that
we do not know.
In response to what I view as an
outrageous and unchecked effort
to scam the unsuspecting public,
my company, INSCATECH, has established GenuCert, a B-to-B certification program that was designed
to help the food industry deal
exclusively in authentic ingredients.
The GenuCert certification program
was designed for businesses. It is a
way for buyers to identify legitimate sellers. It also helps honest and
ethical sellers highlight the quality of
their products to potential buyers.
Through a combination of regular
undercover food fraud investigations
conducted by INSCATECH, and established scientific testing conducted by
expert food testing laboratories, products that bear a certification from
the GenuCert family of certifications
are proven to be authentic. GenuCert
certifications include: GenuHoney,
GenuMilk, GenuBeef, GenuOliveOil,
GenuSpice, GenuMaple, GenuJuice,
GenuCoffee and GenuVanilla. They
signify to businesses worldwide that
the ingredients bearing these certifications are authentic. GenuCert is
intended to become the benchmark
certification for those in sales and
procurement to work together trade
only in the highest quality, safest and
authentic ingredients.
Many consumers assume that the
food they purchase is safe for consumption, and sometimes it is. But
those of us who are passionate
about quality and safety in the marketplace know that there is much
work that still needs to be done in
order to ensure that the global food
supply chain is safe, and built on the
kind of integrity that supports the
health of humankind. I invite anyone who feels similarly motivated to
ask more questions and commit to
making the kind of changes that will
move us forward, one step at a time.