Food Fraud Notifications in the EU Drop Up to 47% Compared to 2024

The European Commission's monthly report on the Agri-Food Fraud Network reported a decline of between 46% and 47% in suspicious food fraud notifications compared to the same period in 2024. According to the report itself, part of this decline is explained by a methodological change: pesticide residue notifications from third countries stopped being automatically classified as potential fraud suspicion, artificially reducing the figure compared to previous years without necessarily reflecting a real decrease in detected fraudulent activity.

This type of methodological adjustment illustrates a recurring problem when interpreting statistical series on food fraud: a change in classification criteria from one year to the next can generate a striking percentage variation that does not correspond to a real change in the underlying phenomenon, and is only properly understood if the methodological note is read alongside the main figure—something that does not always occur in media coverage of such reports.

The Agri-Food Fraud Network coordinates the exchange of information between Member States on fraud suspicions in the food supply chain—from oil adulteration to species substitution or falsification of origin certificates—and its monthly reports serve as an early warning system enabling national authorities to cross-check information about suspicious operators or trade routes before fraud translates into a large-scale food safety problem.

Food fraud—adulteration, origin or species substitution—falls outside the scope of molecular pathogen detection, but shares with microbiological surveillance the same underlying principle: complete traceability of the supply chain is the tool that enables detection of both a pathogen and a fraud of origin, and both depend on information being recorded and shared consistently across countries.