Food law and enforcement

Food crime is serious fraud that affects the safety or the authenticity of food, drink or animal feed. It ranges from individual acts of dishonesty to organised illegal activity by criminal networks. It can harm consumers, legitimate food businesses and the wider food industry. 

Types of food crimes

The main types of food crime include:

• theft - dishonestly obtaining food, drink or feed products to profit from their use or sale
• unlawful processing - slaughtering or preparing meat and related products in unapproved premises or using unauthorised techniques
• waste diversion - illegally diverting food, drink or feed meant for disposal, back into the supply chain
• adulteration - including a foreign substance which is not on the product's label to lower costs or fake a higher quality
• substitution - replacing a food or ingredient with another substance that is similar but inferior
• misrepresentation - marketing or labelling a product to wrongly portray its quality, safety, origin or freshness
• document fraud - making, using and possessing false documents with the intent to sell or market a fraudulent or substandard product

Preventing food crime

Preventing food crime protects your customers, reputation and profits. Criminals target food businesses to adulterate products, fake labels or sell unsafe imports, which can lead to recalls, fines or closures.

Take these steps to help prevent food crime:

• assess your supply risks
• check your suppliers' paperwork, traceability records and premises
• watch high-risk items like meat, fish and dairy
• train staff to spot issues such as adulteration, false labelling and tampering
• report suspicions to relevant agencies

These measures can also help you demonstrate due diligence if issues arise.

The Food Standard Agency's National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) works to prevent, detect and investigate food crime across the UK. They work with food businesses to make operations hostile to criminals, helping them to identify risks and put safeguards in place. You can use their free self-assessment tool to check your vulnerability and build resilience to food crime.

Reporting food crime

You can report food crime by calling NFCU's Food Crime Confidential on Tel 0800 028 11 80. Alternatively, you can report a food crime online.

In Northern Ireland, you can report to the FSA by emailing fsa.incidentsni@food.gov.uk or calling Tel 028 9041 7700 and asking to speak with the Food Fraud Liaison Officer.

Where there is no deliberate dishonesty or intention to deceive, you should report food safety concerns to the relevant local council instead.