US Food Fraud Expert to take course on food fraud prevention for NZ Food Producers

As 12 people accused of making and selling fake branded baby milk powder in China are on trial in Shanghai, a course on food fraud prevention has been organised to assist New Zealand exporters.

The full day Intentional Adulteration course is being run alongside the 2017 Food Integrity Conference, to help food producers develop strategies to guard against acts intended to cause wide-scale harm to consumers and ruin brand reputation.  

In this latest incident it is claimed that the accused repackaged inferior milk powder as premium infant formula brands. Such intentional food adulteration, or fraud, has the potential to disrupt food supply and cause illness or even death. This sort of food safety issue could have a detrimental impact on New Zealand food brands and their reputation.

Dr Amy Kircher Director Food Protection and Defense Institute, which is a United States of America Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence, is an internationally recognised expert on Food Adulteration and will lead the course in Auckland in June.

Asia Pacific Centre for Food Integrity Director and Food Integrity 2017 conference organiser, Dr Helen Darling says the aim of the Intentional Adulteration course is to ensure NZ food businesses can identify motivations and methods that lead to food defense incidents and know how to protect against them. Additionally, should the worst happen, participants will learn how to investigate food defense incidents.

Dr Darling says, “New Zealand’s export producers face an increasingly complex food chain. They are judged on the quality of their food once it reaches the consumer, even though they don’t have total control over the supply chain. The global experience and insight of speakers at FOOD INTEGRITY 2017 and the Intentional Adulteration course will assist New Zealand food exporters understand the risk and develop strategies to mitigate it.”