Food & Climate
Estimates value the global adulterated foods industry at over $40 bn per year, and it’s widely believed that much food fraud goes undetected. Do you know which foods are most commonly adulterated around the world?
In the following report, seen by “Food & Climate” platform, we identify the 25 food products most vulnerable to fraud, led by olive oil, honey, and milk.
1. Olive oil
Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) is prized, commanding a higher price because it’s the least processed form of olive oil; olives are ground to a paste and pressed to extract the oil without heat. Its high economic value has made it vulnerable to fraud, with numerous cases of mislabeled and diluted oils – either with lower-grade olive oils or other oils altogether – and instances of olive oils with false geographical claims. In 2019, a staggering 150,000 litres of fake EVOO (low-quality oils that had been modified for color) were seized after an investigation in Italy and Germany.
2. Milk
Milk is one of the most faked foods, according to the Food Fraud Database, with the most famous instance of deliberate contamination occurring in China in 2008. Baby formula milk had been diluted with water, and melamine was added to boost the nitrogen content – resulting in tens of thousands of infants becoming sick, and six deaths. Adding water is the most common fraud, increasing the volume (and therefore boosting profits).
3. Honey
Honey is the third most-faked food, according to the Food Fraud Database, with producers using corn syrup, beet sugar or sucrose to dilute the real stuff, or chemically modifying sugars to mimic bees’ honey. Cases of so-called ‘honey laundering’ include the 2013 case dubbed ‘Operation Honeygate’. The US Justice Department charged two importers, Honey Solutions and Groeb Farms, with shipping fake or adulterated Chinese honey through other countries to avoid shipping duties and avoid revealing its origin. The case ended with Groeb and Honey Holdings entering deferred prosecution agreements.
The most easily adulterated foods
Although olive oil, milk, and honey rank among the top three most adulterated foods in the world, tea and coffee are among the most easily adulterated foods, ranking 19th and 20th among the top 25 adulterated foods.
19. Tea
Tea is vulnerable to fraud. The texture and odors of dried and ground leaves are relatively easy to duplicate, and it’s particularly difficult for customers to discern the difference when they’re packaged in tea bags. A 2014 report in the US by the Congressional Research Service, which looked at the issue of food fraud, lists tea among the ingredients with the most reported cases. Tea, it says, has been found to be bulked out with leaves from other plants, color additives and dyed sawdust.
20. Coffee
Ground coffee can be an easy target for fraudsters, with lower-quality or less in-demand varieties substituted or mixed in and sold at a high price. Some coffee, including supposed ‘gourmet grounds’ from Brazil, has been found to contain cereal grains, brown sugar, roasted corn, parchment paper and even twigs. Ground coffee is considered particularly vulnerable since the appearance, texture and color is easy to duplicate, though scientists have been working on ways to ‘fingerprint’ it to determine whether customers are being duped.
Sweets and tomato purée
Sweets and tomato purée rank last among the 25 most adulterated foods in the world.
24. Tomato purée
It’s an essential ingredient in Italian cooking, so people naturally want to buy Italian tomato purée. However, this product has frequently been found to be mislabeled when sold in supermarkets in the UK and Germany. A BBC investigation in 2024 revealed that many products labelled as ‘Italian’ actually used tomatoes that were likely to have been grown and picked in China via forced labor. Testing showed 17 products contained Chinese-grown tomatoes, which are often imported into Italy.
25. Sweets
Those who have a sweet tooth might want to be wary of ‘counterfeit candy’ – particularly in the UK, where shops selling American sweets have been reported to disguise supermarket own-brand chocolate as bigger names, wrapping the bars in branded packaging. This type of food fraud is often just the start of wider crime, too. In 2023, more than £1 million ($1.29m) worth of illegal goods, including mobile phone cases and disposable vapes, was seized from US candy shops on London’s Oxford Street.
The rest of the list of 25 adulterated foods includes:
4. Wasabi, 5. Sushi, 6. Red snapper, 7. Grouper, and 8. Lemon sole.
They also include 9. Vanilla. Another pricey and much-prized ingredient, vanilla is an obvious target for food fraud. Pods are pretty impossible to replicate, but there have been instances of so-called ‘pure’ vanilla extract actually being blended with cheaper tonka bean extract, which has a very similar taste and aroma. Synthetic vanilla, made from vanillin synthesised in a lab, is frequently used in cheaper vanilla-flavored extracts but, again, has also been found in those labelled as pure vanilla.
Moreover, 10. Lobster, 11. Caviar, 12. Black pepper, 13. Organic produce, 14. Beef, 18. Parmesan, 16. Fruit juice, and 15. Saffron.
Eggs ranked 17th in cheating. A staple ingredient in both sweet and savory recipes, eggs might not be the most obvious target for fraud. In some instances, eggs from caged hens have been labelled as free-range. An operation by the UK’s Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) that started in 2006 revealed that millions of imported caged eggs had been mislabeled as free-range or organic, leading to multiple arrests, according to “Love Food“.