Hate to break it to you, but your truffle oil wasn't made from truffles. Your vanilla extract? Well, that's probably just a lab-made derivative of crude oil. And your shaker of Parmesan cheese? It probably has wood pulp inside. You might feel the companies behind these food products are using deceptive packaging — but it's legal. However, there's a whole other level of trickery that's completely illegal: food fraud. That's when criminals bottle up corn syrup and call it 100% honey, or when they pass off cheap mozzarella as pure Parmigiano-Reggiano. Globally, the fraudulent food industry could be worth $40 billion. It hurts legitimate producers, funds criminal activities, and can even harm consumers. We head around the world to uncover how producers get away with food deception and how we can spot the real stuff.
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00:00 It takes over 40 gallons of sap to make just one jug of real maple syrup.
00:06 That's why one of these bottles can cost $10.
00:10 And grocery stores are flooded with imitation syrups that don't have any maple sap at all.
00:15 In fact, tons of expensive foods we love eating might not be the real thing, including wasabi,
00:21 vanilla, and truffle oil.
00:23 "The main reason why this happens, it's all about money."
00:27 Some of this is legal.
00:29 As long as products that aren't the real deal disclose it on the packaging, even if it's
00:33 a bit sneaky.
00:36 But often it's illegal, with entire criminal rings behind these counterfeit foods.
00:41 Globally, the fraudulent food industry could be worth $40 billion.
00:46 "The sort of least end of it, you're getting ripped off.
00:49 At the worst end, you're literally getting poisoned."
00:51 So how did fake food take over our grocery stores, restaurants, and kitchens?
00:55 And how do counterfeiters get away with it?
00:58 We travel around the world to learn how to spot the real stuff.
01:07 First up, truffles.
01:11 Hate to break it to you, but your $15 truffle fries don't have any truffle on them.
01:16 "What is called truffle oil is entirely made in a laboratory.
01:21 Has nothing to do with mushrooms."
01:24 Real truffles are pricey and rare.
01:27 And they need specific conditions to grow, usually in places like Italy and France, or
01:31 here in the UK.
01:34 "Truffles are always found with trees, and they have to be the right type of trees.
01:41 Under the ground, the truffle is just the fruiting body, so in accordance with an apple."
01:46 We used to train pigs to find the fungi, but now, mostly dogs do the sniffing.
01:51 "Good boy, thank you.
01:53 Good boy, come."
01:55 "So he's told us it's there, it's still in the ground, so do I want to take it out of
02:01 the ground or not?
02:02 It all depends on if it's ripe.
02:03 If it's unripe, there's no point in having it.
02:06 So the nose comes into play, and we actually sniff the ground for it.
02:10 Yeah, that's a nice one.
02:14 Yeah, that's probably about 70, 80 grams.
02:20 Once the truffle is out of the ground, the clock is ticking.
02:23 It's just sort of slowly going to degrade over time."
02:28 People have learned how to farm truffles successfully.
02:31 About 80% of the black truffles we consume are now cultivated.
02:35 But it can still take as long as six years to grow them, and most attempts to farm the
02:39 most expensive white truffles have failed.
02:42 Which is why they're so pricey and often counterfeited.
02:48 Since truffles are hunted in the wild and delivered in labelless bags, it's easy for
02:52 fraudsters to swap them out for cheaper ones without getting caught.
02:58 But truffle oil might be the trickiest.
03:01 It's usually just olive or sunflower oil with a touch of a synthetic compound derived from
03:06 petroleum called 2,4-dithiopentane.
03:09 It contains the same aromatic component of foot odor.
03:13 That's why you get that earthy taste and can sometimes smell gas.
03:17 "Anything with a truffle flavor added to it is really problematic.
03:22 Truffle is not a product that lends itself to being either made in oil or steeped in
03:26 oil."
03:28 You can tell it's artificial when you see words like "truffle flavoring" or "aroma"
03:32 on a package.
03:33 The most foolproof, though?
03:35 See it shaved right in front of you.
03:37 "It should look like a truffle, look like a mushroom product."
03:45 Maple syrup is another tricky case.
03:47 One food fraud lawyer we spoke to estimated as much as half of what's labeled 100% maple
03:52 syrup might be fake.
03:56 Real maple syrup is tapped from trees.
04:00 Canada produces 85% of the world's real supply.
04:04 But the U.S. set production records in 2022 thanks to brands like SapJack out of Vermont.
04:10 The company steam heats its sap.
04:12 Then machines filter and bottle the syrup, usually within six hours.
04:17 It takes about 44 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of real maple syrup.
04:22 Which is why real maple syrup can cost about six times more than pancake syrup.
04:29 The imitation kind is often a mix of corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color,
04:34 and added flavorings.
04:37 This kind of syrup isn't illegal.
04:39 And you can tell it's not real maple when you see words like "pancake syrup" or "table
04:43 syrup" on the label.
04:44 While the authentic kind will say "100%" or "pure."
04:48 And have just "maple syrup" on the ingredients list.
04:53 But there's a more nefarious kind of syrup fraud.
04:56 The FDA says companies have previously bottled up fake syrup, labeled it 100% real syrup,
05:02 and pocketed the profits.
05:03 And that's illegal.
05:04 In that case, it might be best to look at the consistency.
05:09 Maple syrup is often thinner than fake, corn-based syrups.
05:15 Wasabi is probably the most widely faked food on our list.
05:19 It's estimated only 1% of American wasabi, and 5% of Japanese wasabi is real.
05:26 Most of it is actually a mixture of horseradish, a sweetener, and a food starch.
05:29 It's just funny to me when people say, "I love wasabi, I love sushi here."
05:33 And I'm thinking, "Well, you've never had good sushi, and you've never had any wasabi."
05:38 The FDA doesn't have specific guidelines for the term "wasabi," so only its rules
05:42 on labeling would apply.
05:45 As long as the ingredients list is accurate, it's legal to label something "prepared
05:50 wasabi," even if it's just horseradish.
05:53 "It's not going to make you sick to eat it.
05:55 It just doesn't taste as good."
05:58 Real wasabi is related to cheap veggies like horseradish, cabbage, or broccoli.
06:02 But it can cost nearly 30 times more.
06:05 For one, there's way more demand than supply.
06:11 Wasabi is surprisingly rare.
06:14 It's considered the hardest plant to farm commercially in the world.
06:18 It grows naturally along Japanese mountain springs, where the temperatures are mild and
06:22 there's enough shade and gravel soil.
06:27 The Wasabi Company, based in the UK, is the first commercial grower in Europe.
06:33 The company has recreated the conditions of Japan, but it still takes 18 months before
06:38 the plant is ready for harvesting.
06:40 "The harvesting will be done by hand, and then it's a laborious process to break it
06:44 apart, the whole plant, and then clean up the rhizomes.
06:48 There's no machine that's going to help you pull this out of the ground and trim it up
06:51 fit for the sushi counter.
06:56 This is a stem, and we get our special grater, which has very, very fine teeth, and you can
07:01 see it doesn't have any holes on the back.
07:04 We're not after really grating the wasabi, we're after pasting."
07:10 This can cost $319 per kilo.
07:13 "And if you're not seeing it grated fresh in front of you, then it's very unlikely
07:17 it's fresh wasabi."
07:19 So what does real wasabi look and taste like?
07:22 It should be chunkier and have a gritty texture, whereas horseradish-based wasabi will be smooth.
07:28 The real stuff actually doesn't have as spicy of a kick.
07:32 It's more subtle.
07:39 Another victim to confusing labeling?
07:41 Parmesan cheese.
07:42 There are only about 300 dairies in the entire world that are certified to produce authentic
07:47 Parmigiano-Reggiano, and they're under strict regulations.
07:52 They can only be made in one region of Italy, called Emilia-Romagna.
07:59 This is the sole place in the world that has all three bacteria needed to give Parm its
08:04 distinct taste.
08:06 Cheese masters combine day-old skim and fresh milk.
08:09 They add whey and rennet, then they split the milk into curds.
08:14 The mixture cooks for five minutes to kill off bacteria and to settle the curds at the
08:18 bottom of the vat.
08:19 What's left is a massive 220-pound curd.
08:24 Cheesemakers dump it into molds and add stencils to identify the cheese as authentic.
08:28 The wheel heads to brining to form a rind, and then a huge aging room.
08:41 It takes at least one year of aging for it to develop these crunchy crystals.
08:46 They're buildups of amino acids, and they hold the cheese's umami taste.
08:50 But some will stay here for up to a decade.
08:53 The longer they mature, the more crystals form, and the more valuable they become.
08:58 One wheel can cost well over $1,000.
09:01 But other countries have different laws.
09:04 In the U.S., you can legally call something "Parmesan" without following the strict
09:08 Italian rules for Parmigiano-Reggiano.
09:11 For example, American parm can be aged for only 10 months, whereas in Italy, at least
09:16 a year is required.
09:18 But grated cheese is even further from the real thing.
09:22 In the U.S., producers are allowed to mix in fillers like rice flour or cellulose, commonly
09:27 obtained from wood pulp.
09:29 They're used to keep the grains from sticking together.
09:33 The Center for Dairy Research suggests keeping cellulose levels between 2 and 4 percent.
09:38 But the problem is, companies aren't required to list the percentages of these fillers,
09:42 and often no one's checking.
09:45 In 2016, Bloomberg reported Walmart's Great Value 100% Parmesan had 7.8% cellulose, nearly
09:52 double the suggested limit.
09:55 Some 50 lawsuits were filed alleging the labeling was misleading, but a judge dismissed them
10:00 all.
10:01 But there's a more nefarious kind of parm fraud, where criminals label counterfeit
10:06 cheese as real Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano.
10:09 Estimates put these illegal sales at $2 billion each year.
10:15 Phony cheeses are hurting the real Parmigiano industry in Italy.
10:18 "They lose market share and value.
10:22 Half the people in Parma's life depends upon the Parma ham or Parmesan cheese industry.
10:27 And so there's a big impetus to protect that."
10:32 So while you're standing in the cheese aisle, how do you make sure you're grabbing the
10:35 authentic parm?
10:36 Well, first, maybe don't buy those shakers.
10:39 Each chunk of the wheel will have a part of the words "Parmigiano-Reggiano" spelled
10:43 out in dots.
10:45 It'll also have a protected designation of origin, or DOP label.
10:49 "Real Parmesan cheese from Italy is readily available.
10:53 Almost any supermarket, certainly any cheese shop, sometimes it's cheaper than some of
10:57 the fake versions."
10:59 The other tell is taste.
11:01 Parmigiano-Reggiano, depending on the age, will have those crystals that pack a fruity
11:05 and nutty flavor.
11:11 Just like Parmesan, vanilla can have some confusing labeling.
11:16 It's estimated just 1% of all vanilla products in the world are real.
11:21 Most of the legit stuff comes from Madagascar, where farmers colonize orchids by hand.
11:27 The beans are boiled and sun-dried at a processing facility.
11:31 Workers hand-massage each pod to release the chemical vanillin.
11:37 The beans then soak in a mixture of alcohol and water to make the extract.
11:43 The whole thing is laborious and expensive.
11:46 So in the U.S., many brands sell imitation versions, using lab-made vanillin.
11:52 It's either derived from petroleum or from compounds found in clove oil, wood, and bark.
11:58 And that's legal as long as artificial flavoring is listed on the package.
12:03 But it could be more dangerous in other countries.
12:06 In 2008 in Mexico, some products labeled as vanilla were found to be made from the beans
12:11 of a toga tree, a completely different plant.
12:14 They contained a toxic substance called coumarin that's banned in the U.S. and is dangerous
12:19 for people on blood thinners.
12:21 These illegal products were sold all over the Americas.
12:25 So how can you tell what's real?
12:28 Many vanilla products like ice cream and cookies get away with using the imitation stuff by
12:32 just saying "natural flavoring" on the ingredients list.
12:37 The real stuff will list vanilla bean extratives.
12:40 Also take a look and a whiff.
12:43 In this test we did, the authentic vanilla smelled much stronger of alcohol.
12:47 And it was much cloudier than the fake stuff.
12:51 Caviar, the most expensive fish eggs out there, can also mean big payouts for fraudsters.
12:59 In the U.S., federal agents have busted multiple criminal operations for fraudulent caviar.
13:05 It's often counterfeited because it's so difficult to harvest.
13:10 One of America's only caviar farms is raising beluga, which has some of the priciest eggs
13:15 on the market.
13:16 A single kilogram can sell for a whopping $24,000.
13:22 Caviar is made from the roe, or the eggs, of sturgeons, which are critically endangered.
13:27 It takes 10 years before a sturgeon is ready to have its roe harvested.
13:31 Producers remove the egg sac from the dead fish and rub it over a metal grate.
13:36 Salting the eggs is especially difficult because workers don't want to pop any of them.
13:41 A 2-ounce jar goes for $175 at a shop in New York City.
13:46 Those high prices tempt criminal counterfeiters, who often come from China or Vietnam.
13:52 They make fake caviar from the eggs of cheaper fish.
13:57 Or they'll label low-grade caviar as a fancier imported kind so they can charge more, which
14:01 is hard to catch.
14:03 I certainly cannot look at a bunch of fish eggs and tell whether they're expensive fish
14:07 eggs or not expensive fish eggs.
14:10 So if you're going to spend hundreds on a tiny jar, you want to make sure it's the real
14:14 deal, right?
14:15 Well, you can use the hot water test.
14:18 Real caviar will harden in hot water as the proteins cook, but fake caviar will dissolve.
14:24 Knock-off roe might look dull and take irregular shapes, while authentic caviar will be uniformly
14:29 sized and have a glossy shine to it.
14:37 Fake honey is even more widespread.
14:41 A third of what's traded internationally is adulterated or completely fake.
14:45 I feel it's the biggest secret food fraud that has ever been perpetrated globally.
14:53 I really do.
14:55 Real honey needs a perfect combination of nature and patience.
14:59 Bees do most of the work.
15:02 Beekeepers have to be careful not to disturb the natural process.
15:06 They suit up with a face mask and full-bodied coverings to protect from stings.
15:11 This smoker calms the bees so they can easily remove honeycomb frames.
15:17 Beekeepers scrape the wax that keeps the honey in each cell.
15:20 Finally, a centrifuge spins the frames, pushing the honey out of the combs.
15:27 But globally, there is more honey being sold than the world's bees are capable of making.
15:33 Honey counterfeits containing little to no real honey can explain that difference.
15:39 Dupes are made up of high-fructose corn syrup and other cheap syrups like glucose, rice,
15:44 cane or beet.
15:45 You don't have to go to all the hard work of the beekeeping and all of that lengthy
15:52 process.
15:53 You just get maybe some honey and some other honey from somewhere else.
15:57 You blend it together, you add some sugars.
16:00 Many experts say the fake honey often comes from China.
16:03 The biggest honey exporter on the planet.
16:06 Fraudsters in China market sugar syrups that will outsmart lab tests if added to honey.
16:11 Or they'll filter out all the pollen, making it impossible to trace.
16:14 This stuff that's being shipped out of China technically isn't even honey.
16:21 You're looking at that honey going through so many pairs of hands.
16:25 So there are many, many opportunities for it to be bulked out with cheaper sugars.
16:32 In 2013, the U.S. Justice Department busted two American honey importers in one of the
16:36 biggest food fraud cases in U.S. history.
16:39 In what's now called Honeygate, they routed sham Chinese honey, laced with antibiotics,
16:44 through other countries to avoid import fees.
16:47 Both had to pay millions in fines.
16:52 But Sarah does have a few tips.
16:54 First, avoid any label with the word "blend."
16:57 The very act of processing honey, that damages honey irreparably.
17:02 Even if they're not adding anything, they're corrupting that honey and they're making it
17:06 worthless, just a worthless jar of sugars.
17:09 She says your best bet is to buy raw honey from a local producer at a nearby farmer's
17:13 market and be willing to pay a little bit more.
17:16 If you're going for the cheap end of the market, you're going to get an awful lot of fraudulently
17:21 produced honey.
17:26 Olive oil also tops our list of frequently faked foods.
17:31 Authentic extra virgin olive oil has to be freshly squeezed from ripe olives.
17:36 Most come from farms in Spain, Italy, or Greece.
17:39 Like this cooperative farm in Antiquera, Spain, the largest olive oil producer in the world.
17:46 Workers harvest olives from November to January, using these vibrating machines that shake
17:50 the fruit loose.
17:53 They dump the olives into big trailers waiting to head to factories.
17:59 This one can process thousands of olives an hour.
18:03 First, washing off any dirt.
18:08 Extra virgin olive oil is the least processed kind out there, using no heat or chemicals.
18:14 The machines grind the olives into a thick paste, and then spin it.
18:18 Massive decanters press it out of the mush.
18:22 The factory pumps the oil into storage and finally into bottles.
18:26 This is one of the most expensive cooking oils in the world, selling for over $10 a
18:30 17-ounce bottle.
18:34 And it's easy to imitate, so criminal rings making fake oil have thrived since ancient
18:39 Rome.
18:41 Some fill up these bottles with cheap soybean or vegetable oil.
18:44 Others mix in lower-grade olive oil but still label it as extra virgin.
18:48 If you hold a bottle of olive oil up to the light in the supermarket, you can't tell if
18:52 it has corn oil in it or not.
18:55 Some are so organized, they have their own supply chains, from farms to bottling facilities,
19:00 like this ring in Italy that Europol busted.
19:04 So how do you know what you're buying is real extra virgin?
19:07 If it just says "virgin," if it just says "olive oil," if it says "olive oil blend,"
19:11 if it says "light olive oil," it's not an olive oil that I would buy.
19:16 You don't want to buy anything that's not extra virgin.
19:19 They don't leave those words off on purpose, right?
19:23 Plus if it's $3 a bottle, Larry says it's too good to be true.
19:28 The pressed on date is also important.
19:30 European oils are harvested in the fall and winter, so if you're buying a Spanish olive
19:34 oil in August, it's nearly a year old.
19:38 Larry says it starts losing flavor after a year or two.
19:41 So you never want a pressed on date that's more than two years old.
19:45 You could also smell it.
19:46 Real olive oil has a fruity and grassy smell.
19:49 If it smells like nothing, or it's rancid, there's a good chance it's not real.
19:58 This is real wagyu beef.
20:00 But what's popping up on menus across the U.S. probably isn't.
20:05 Wagyu literally means "Japanese cow," and it refers to four main breeds.
20:10 The Japanese government tightly regulates how these cows are raised to control the quality
20:14 of their meat.
20:15 A popular type of wagyu is Kobe beef, which comes from the area around Kobe, Japan.
20:21 The steers, or castrated bulls, are fed a strict diet of rice and corn.
20:26 Foodies love their meat for its tenderness, sweetness, and distinct marbling.
20:31 As of 2019, a pound of wagyu could cost up to $200.
20:36 The cows themselves could sell for as much as $30,000.
20:40 That can be more than 10 times the price of black Angus cattle.
20:44 And Japan only exports a few thousand tons a year.
20:48 So wagyu in American restaurants isn't always up to Japanese standards.
20:53 Most of the wagyu cattle in the U.S. have also been bred with other, hardier breeds
20:58 that can handle environments like the dry heat of Texas.
21:01 So their meat isn't 100% wagyu.
21:04 According to USDA rules, wagyu cows only need to have one parent with at least 93.7% wagyu
21:10 genetics, so they could have as little as 46.9% themselves and still be called wagyu.
21:19 The USDA isn't responsible for what goes on at restaurants.
21:23 So they can more easily get away with listing something as wagyu on a menu when it might
21:26 not be up to snuff.
21:27 "Arby's made a new burger.
21:30 Upgraded it with rich, juicy wagyu beef."
21:34 Take this commercial for Arby's Wagyu Burger.
21:36 In the fine print, you'll see it contains only 51% American wagyu.
21:43 So how can you make sure your $300 is getting you an actual wagyu steak?
21:47 Well, first you can look at it.
21:49 The fat in real wagyu is evenly distributed.
21:51 The marbling is distinctive, with thin, intricate white veins.
21:55 Also Larry says Kobe would rarely, if ever, be served on the bone.
21:59 And it doesn't make the best burger, because it's too tender to be formed into patties.
22:04 If you're still not convinced, you can ask to see the wagyu's Certificate of Authenticity.
22:08 Or look for this bronze statue in restaurants authorized to sell Kobe.
22:16 You might be surprised to learn even your coffee could be phony.
22:21 You could just be brewing up a bag of inferior beans marketed as some more expensive ones.
22:26 Or it could be something completely different.
22:28 Ground acorns, barley, or wheat.
22:30 "Coffee is big, big, big business.
22:33 And historically, it has been cut with anything that's brown.
22:39 Burnt paper, burnt corn, sawdust."
22:43 That's because growing coffee is expensive and labor-intensive.
22:48 Farmers need to harvest more than 1,500 of these cherries to make just one pound of coffee
22:52 beans.
22:53 And they have to do it fast.
22:55 "We have to do something with it immediately.
22:57 It only lasts 24 hours."
23:00 Farmers have to hand-pick the berries, avoiding unripe ones.
23:03 Then they load only the ripe ones into 100-pound bags.
23:07 The skin is removed, and the two seeds inside are dried out and roasted.
23:11 Large-scale farms can produce cheaper coffee picking the whole tree and processing ripe
23:15 and unripe berries together.
23:18 It's not illegal, but it hurts quality.
23:21 What is illegal?
23:22 When counterfeiters bag up cheaper beans, slap on a fake label, and fool customers into
23:26 paying more.
23:27 Or when they fill a portion of a bag with cheaper coffee.
23:30 And they get away with it because coffee's origin is so hard to track.
23:34 "You have thousands and thousands of really small producers around the world who pick
23:40 their beans and then they're put into trucks and then they're put into containers and then
23:44 they're put on boats.
23:45 There's so many points along those supply chains that somebody has the opportunity to
23:50 tamper with products."
23:51 But you can do your due diligence.
23:53 Buy from reputable sources.
23:55 Verify the origin of your coffee.
23:56 Look for certifications like from the Specialty Coffee Association on the packaging.
24:06 Saffron is the world's most expensive spice.
24:09 But the market for red gold is widely tainted with cheaper products.
24:13 Real saffron comes from three tiny strands, or stigmas, of the Crocus sativus flower.
24:19 Here in Kashmir, the delicate flowers need about two years to grow before farmers like
24:23 Ashik Rashid can harvest them, just like his family has done for nearly a century.
24:29 The stigmas are so fragile, farmers must remove them by hand.
24:33 The less valuable yellow tips are cut off and sifted out.
24:37 Ashik and his dad spend two and a half hours plucking enough saffron just to fill this
24:41 tiny container.
24:43 All in all, it takes over 150,000 flowers to make just one kilo of saffron, which can
24:48 cost $3,000.
24:52 At those prices, counterfeiters can earn big bucks, if they dupe buyers.
24:56 It's even been reported criminals earned millions passing off hay, horsehair, coconut
25:02 filaments, or roots as saffron.
25:05 To stop the influx of imitation saffron, the local government launched this trading center.
25:11 Farmers can authenticate their crop and get a GI tag.
25:16 But the center has barely scratched the surface.
25:19 So how can consumers make sure they're purchasing real saffron?
25:22 You can do a water test.
25:24 "Threads of saffron are put into water or milk.
25:27 It should give, very slowly release, a yellow color and not an instant coloring of red or
25:34 orange color.
25:35 That is a purity test for saffron."
25:37 The threads of fake saffron will also easily disintegrate, while real ones will hold their
25:41 form.
25:42 And then there's the price.
25:44 "Paying more for products does not assure their validity, but paying less kind of assures
25:51 their invalidity.
25:52 You're not going to get cheap saffron."
26:00 So why is all this counterfeit stuff really that awful?
26:03 "One is just pure economic fraud.
26:05 If you buy what you think is Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee for $30 a pound and it's
26:10 cheaper coffee, you've been ripped off."
26:13 But then there's our health.
26:14 If your extra virgin olive oil is secretly cut with peanut oil and you're allergic
26:18 to peanuts, well that could be deadly.
26:20 "Especially products out of China.
26:23 Honey has been found to contain drugs that are banned in this country because there are
26:27 no carcinogens."
26:29 Authentic brands can't compete with the cheap prices of fakes.
26:32 "Cheap honey imports really do hamper us from selling our honey at a fair price.
26:38 It's meeting implausible low price points."
26:43 Beekeepers warn the fraudulent stuff could put them and millions of hives out of business.
26:48 But why is this problem so widespread?
26:51 And why is it hard to catch the criminals?
26:55 Some criminal groups are so well-structured, they operate like companies with multiple
26:58 departments.
26:59 They even have teams researching consumer trends to decide what to counterfeit next.
27:05 In one Italian olive oil ring, the culprits hired food scientists to create recipes.
27:11 The counterfeiters will then secure suppliers and set up sophisticated factories in abandoned
27:15 warehouses.
27:17 They operate in areas where real products are made so their movements don't arouse
27:21 suspicion.
27:22 Criminals will bottle up the fraudulent product to look like real ones, down to a fake batch
27:26 number.
27:27 To sell their counterfeits, they often knock on restaurant doors or set up fake websites
27:31 or postings.
27:33 Operating virtually and shipping products through multiple countries makes it much harder
27:37 to trace.
27:39 Europol helped break up 40 organized crime rings committing food fraud in 2022, including
27:44 an Italian gang exporting fake olive oil, a network passing off Gardenia's saffron
27:49 in Spain, and a fake spice operation in South Africa.
27:53 But with massive international supply chains, it's really hard to catch all the counterfeits.
27:59 While the USDA inspects imported meat and eggs, the Food and Drug Administration is
28:03 responsible for the rest.
28:05 And it's estimated the FDA inspects just 1 to 2 percent of imported foods.
28:12 They have made very clear that they consider the drug side of their equation a higher priority
28:17 and they always had and probably always will have finite resources.
28:24 I disagree with that logic because I look at the food we eat as the only drug that everybody
28:29 takes every day.
28:31 But even if they're caught, the punishment isn't usually as harsh as drug trafficking.
28:36 This is big crime and why not?
28:38 It's huge money.
28:39 It's better than dealing drugs for them because no one's going to break your door
28:44 down at 4 in the morning and arrest you for selling rubbish honey.
28:48 Larry says two things could deter counterfeiting before it starts.
28:52 Tougher sentencing and the use of blockchain to track the supply chain through labels.
28:57 So I think the situation is improving, just not enough.
29:00 I think we need clearer laws, real penalties and real enforcement, not just a slap on the
29:06 wrist.
29:07 You can't legislate crime away, but you can certainly make it tougher.
29:14 But some of it comes down to the consumer.
29:16 Because I think if we stop buying the really cheap, horrible product, actually in the end
29:23 this fraud will become far less of an issue.
29:26 Buy things in their whole form.
29:29 You know what a lobster looks like, but you buy like lobster ravioli, sometimes there's
29:33 no lobster in it.
29:35 And always look at the ingredient list.
29:38 Because if you know how to differentiate the real stuff from the fake stuff, the decision
29:41 of what you put in your body becomes yours.
29:45 The consumer does have power.
29:47 Though we appear to be utterly disempowered in this debate, we're not.
29:52 People should not live their lives in fear of going to the supermarket.
29:56 Make it your mission as a consumer to try to buy things that are better.
30:03 If you by mistake buy some really rubbish honey, it is the best hair pack in the world,
30:09 hair and face pack.
30:10 Just put it on your hair, slap it on your face, because it's only about the sugars.
30:15 And it's just absolutely fantastic.
30:17 So it doesn't have to go to waste.
30:19 It's gonna be stuff, but you can just make it like the best beauty treatment there ever
30:24 was.
30:27 [music]
30:36 (upbeat music)