11 products that are counterfeited most often: how not to get scammed

Have you ever heard of food scams? Criminals bottle corn syrup and call it 100% honey or pass off cheap mozzarella as pure Parmigiano-Reggiano. How manufacturers manage to avoid food fraud, and how you can distinguish real products from counterfeits, explains Insider.

Photo: IStock

Globally, the fraudulent food industry has a turnover of $40 billion. It harms legitimate producers, finances criminal activities, and may even harm consumers.

It takes over 40 gallons of juice to make just one jug of real maple syrup. That's why one of these bottles can cost $10. And grocery stores are littered with artificial syrups that don't contain maple sap at all.

In fact, we love to eat tons of expensive foods that may be fake, including wasabi, vanilla, and truffle oil. The main reason why this happens is money. Some of this is legal as long as the manufacturer indicates the ingredients on the packaging, although this also smacks of fraud. But this is often illegal, since entire criminal groups are behind counterfeit products.

At best, you are simply being deceived. At worst, you will literally be poisoned. How fake food has taken over our grocery stores, restaurants and kitchens - how do scammers get away with it?

truffles

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What is called truffle oil is completely made in the laboratory. It has nothing to do with mushrooms. Real truffles are expensive and rare. And they need special conditions to grow, usually in Italy, France or the UK.

Truffles can always be found near trees, and they must be of the right type. Underground, a truffle is just a fruiting body, that is, the equivalent of an apple. Pigs used to be trained to find mushrooms, but now the sniffing is mostly done by dogs.

As soon as the truffle is taken out of the ground, the clock is ticking. Over time, it will gradually deteriorate.

But people have learned how to grow truffles successfully. About 80% of the black truffles we consume are currently farmed, but they can still take up to six years to grow. And most attempts to grow the most expensive white truffles have failed, which is why they are so expensive and often counterfeited.

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Since the truffles are harvested from the wild and shipped in unlabeled bags, it's easier for scammers to replace them with cheaper ones without getting caught. And truffle oil is usually just olive or sunflower oil with a hint of a synthetic oil-derived compound called 2,4-dithiapentane. It contains the same aromatic component as foot odor. Truffle is not a product from which oil can be made. The packaging often says "truffle flavor".

Klenovыy syrup

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Maple syrup is another tricky case. One food fraud lawyer said that even if the label says "100% maple syrup," the product can still be counterfeit.

Real maple syrup is harvested from trees. Canada produces 85% of all world supplies. But in 2022, the US set production records thanks to brands like Vermont-based Sapjack. The company heats the juice with steam. The machines then filter and bottle the syrup, usually within six hours.

It takes about 1 gallons of sap to make just 44 gallon of real maple syrup. This is why real maple syrup can cost about six times more than pancake syrup.

The fake is often a mixture of high fructose corn syrup, caramel color and added flavorings. This kind of syrup is not illegal. You should be alerted by such words on the package: “pancake syrup” or “table syrup”. The original product will say "100%" or "pure" on the label, and only maple syrup should be on the ingredient list.

But there is a more nefarious kind of syrup scam.

The FDA says companies have previously bottled fake syrup labeling it as 100% real maple syrup.

It is illegal. In this case, it is best to pay attention to the consistency. Real syrup is often lighter than fake corn syrup.

Wasabi

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Most of this product is counterfeit based on horseradish, sweetener and food starch.

The FDA does not have specific recommendations for wasabi, so only its labeling rules will apply. If the ingredient list is correct, it's OK to label something as "done wasabi" even if it's just horseradish. Real wasabi is similar to cheap vegetables like horseradish, cabbage, or broccoli, but can cost up to 30 times more.

First, there is much more demand than supply.

Wasabi is surprisingly rare. In nature, it grows along Japanese mountain springs, where the temperature is mild, there is enough shade and gravel soil.
Based in the UK, Wasabi is the first commercial manufacturer of the product in Europe. The company has recreated conditions in Japan. But it will be another 18 months before the plant is ready. Harvesting will be done by hand, and then the plants will undergo a very laborious process to turn into classic wasabi.

It can cost $319 per kilogram. So what does real wasabi look like and taste like?

It should have a rough texture, as the vegetable is rubbed on a ribbed surface, while horseradish-based wasabi will be smooth. And real wasabi is actually not that spicy. Its taste is more subtle.

Parmesan cheese

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Parmesan can only be produced in one region of Italy called Emilia-Romagna. It is the only place in the world that has all three bacteria needed for parmation.

Cheese Masters combine daily skimmed and fresh milk. Add whey and rennet. They then separate the milk into curds. The mixture is boiled for five minutes to kill the bacteria and to allow the curd to settle to the bottom of the vat. Cheese makers pour it into molds and add stencils to identify the cheese as real. The head of cheese is placed in brine to form a rind, and then it is transferred to a huge aging chamber. It takes at least a year of aging to form crispy crystals. These are accumulations of amino acids, and they retain the taste of the cheese. But some will remain in the cell for up to ten years.

The longer the cheeses age, the more crystals are formed, and the more valuable they become. One head can cost over $1000.

But other countries have different laws. In the US, you can legally call something Parmesan that isn't parmesan. For example, American parmesan can only be aged for 10 months, while in Italy it takes at least a year. But grated cheese is even further from reality.

In the US, manufacturers are allowed to add fillers such as rice flour or cellulose. But the problem is that companies are not required to list the percentages of these excipients, and often no one checks this.

In 2016, Bloomberg reported that Walmart's 100% Great Value Parmesan contains 7,8% cellulose. This is almost double the recommended limit. Approximately 50 lawsuits were filed alleging that the markings were misleading, but the judge dismissed them all. But there is a more nefarious kind of parmesan scam.

The criminals refer to the fake cheese as real Italian parmesan-reggiano cheese. It is estimated that illegal sales amount to $2 billion a year. Fake cheeses are hurting the real parmesan industry in Italy. They are losing market share and value. Half the inhabitants of Parma depend on the production of Parma ham or Parmesan cheese for their lives. Therefore, there is a great incentive to protect these products.
How to buy real parmesan? On each piece of the head there will be a part of the words "Parmigiano-Reggiano" written in dots.

It will also have a protected designation of origin or a DOP label. Sometimes it's even cheaper than some of the fake versions. Another sign is taste. Parmigiano-Reggiano, depending on age, will have crystals that impart a fruity and nutty flavor.

Vanilla Planifolia

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Most of the vanilla comes from Madagascar, where farmers hand-pollinate the orchids.

First of all, the pods must be scalded with boiling water. The water is heated to 63 degrees and vanilla is immersed in it for three minutes. Immediately after this, the pods are poured onto blankets and covered on top. Leave it to “rest” for about a day. This is necessary so that the pod stops ripening and begins to ferment. Then the vanilla is dried in the sun for 4-5 hours a day for 10 days. At night she is removed indoors, having previously been wrapped in blankets (jute bags). After this, the pods ripen for a month in the shade, in a well-ventilated area. When dried, vanilla “loses weight” seven times. Following this process is very important, as improper processing will lead to spoilage of the vanilla. Vanilla is dried for a very long time - up to 4 weeks. Definitely in the shade. All this is labor-intensive and expensive.

So, in the US, many brands sell imitation vanilla, which is made in the laboratory. It is obtained either from petroleum or from compounds found in clove oil, wood, and bark. And it's legal as long as it says "artificial flavor" on the packaging.

But in other countries it may be more dangerous. In 2008, in Mexico, some products labeled "vanilla" were made from the beans of the tonka tree, a completely different plant. They contained a toxic substance called coumarin, banned in the US and dangerous to people taking blood thinners.

How to distinguish real vanilla from a fake? Look for "natural flavor" or "vanilla bean extract" on fakes.

Caviar

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It is often counterfeited because harvesting is very difficult. America's only caviar farm raises beluga. One kilogram can be sold for a whopping $24.

Sturgeon caviar is endangered.

Before it will be possible to extract caviar from sturgeon, 10 years must pass. Producers remove eggs from dead fish. A 2 ounce can costs $175 at a New York store. These high prices tempt scammers.

Fake caviar is made from cheaper fish caviar. Fraudsters label low-grade caviar as more refined imported caviar in order to be able to sell it for a higher price. It's hard to track.

So, if you're going to spend hundreds of dollars on a tiny jar, how do you make sure it's real caviar? There is a hot water test. The real caviar will harden in the hot water as the egg whites boil, while the fake caviar will dissolve. Fake caviar may look dull and irregular in shape, while real caviar will be the same size and have a glossy sheen.

Honey

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Real honey needs the perfect combination of nature and patience. Most of the work is done by bees. Beekeepers should be careful not to disturb the natural process. They wear a face mask and cover their entire body to protect them from being bitten.

Beekeepers scrape off the wax that holds the honey in each cell. Finally, a centrifuge spins the honeycomb to remove the honey. But all over the world, more honey is sold than bees can produce. Counterfeits consist of high fructose corn syrup and other cheap syrups such as glucose, rice, cane or beet. This way, the scammers don't have to do all the hard work of beekeeping and that long process.

Many experts say fake honey often comes from China. It is the largest honey exporter on the planet. Scammers in China sell sugar syrups. If you add them to honey, then you can bypass any laboratory tests. Honey passes through many pairs of hands. Therefore, there are many loopholes. to replace it with cheaper sugar.

In 2013, the US Department of Justice arrested two US honey importers in one of the largest food fraud cases in US history. As part of the so-called Honeygate, they shipped fake Chinese honey laced with antibiotics through other countries to avoid import duties.

Both had to pay millions in fines.

How to recognize fake honey?

First, avoid labels with the word "blend". The processing of honey irreparably damages the product. Even if they don't add anything, they spoil that honey and they make it useless, just a useless jar of sugar. Your best bet is to buy raw honey from a local grower at your nearest farmers' market, but be prepared to pay a little more.

If you are aiming for the cheap end of the market, you will end up with a lot of fraudulently produced honey.

Olive oil

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Olive oil should be freshly squeezed from ripe olives. Most of them come from farms in Spain, Italy or Greece.

Workers harvest the olives from November to January using vibrating machines that shake out the olives. In the traditional process, the olives are washed, crushed, mixed and ground with the addition of a small amount of water, which makes it easy to separate the oil from other fractions. The resulting paste is pressed. A mixture of olive juice, additional water and residual oil is obtained.

The plant pumps the oil to storage and finally to bottles. Unrefined extra virgin olive oil (Extra Virgen) is considered one of the best varieties of olive oil. It has a rich color, changing its hue from amber to greenish. It is one of the most expensive cooking oils in the world. It sells for over $10 for a 17-ounce bottle. And it's easy to fake it.

So, criminal gangs producing fake oil have flourished since the days of Ancient Rome. Some fill their bottles with cheap soy or vegetable oil. Others blend lower quality olive oil, but label it Extra Virgen anyway. If you hold a bottle of olive oil up to a light in a supermarket, it's impossible to tell if it contains corn oil or not.

So how do you know which extra virgin olive oil is?

The label should say Extra Virgen, without other specifications. Plus, if a bottle costs $3, it's too good to be true.
The spin date is also important. European oils are harvested in autumn and winter. So, if you buy Spanish olive oil in August, after a year or two it begins to lose its taste.

You can also smell it. Real olive oil has a fruity-herbaceous smell. If it doesn't smell like anything or is rancid, chances are it's fake.

wagyu beef

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Wagyu literally means "Japanese cow" and refers to four main breeds. The Japanese government tightly regulates the rearing of these cows to control the quality of their meat.

A popular type of wagyu is Kobe beef, which is produced around Kobe, Japan. Bulls, or castrated bulls, are kept on a strict diet of rice and corn.

Gourmets love meat for its tenderness, sweetness and distinct marbling. As of 2019, a pound of wagyu can cost up to $200.
The cows themselves sell for $30 - 000 times more expensive than usual.

Japan exports only a few thousand tons of meat per year. So wagyu in American restaurants is not always up to Japanese standards.
Most Wagyu cattle in the US have been crossbred with other, more hardy breeds that are able to adapt to their environment. So their meat is not 100% wagyu. According to USDA regulations, wagyu cows must have a single parent with at least 93,7% wagyu genetics. Thus, they themselves could have only 46,9% and still be called wagyu.

For example, an ad for a wagyu burger from Arby's. In the fine print, you will see that it contains only 51% American Wagyu.

So how can you be sure that $300 will get you a real wagyu steak?

Well, first of all, you may notice that the fat in real wagyu is evenly distributed. The marbling is characteristic, with thin, intricate white veins. Also, Kobe is rarely, if ever, served on the bone. If you are still unsure, you can ask to see the wagyu certificate of authenticity. Or look for this bronze statue in restaurants that are licensed to sell Kobe beef.

Coffee

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There are a lot of low quality beans on the market that are sold as more expensive. Or it could be something completely different: ground acorns, barley, wheat, burnt paper, burnt corn, sawdust. Coffee is big, big, big business.

This is because growing coffee is expensive and labor intensive. Farmers need to harvest over 1500 of these cherries to make just 450 grams of coffee beans, and they need to do it quickly.

Workers have to pick berries by hand, avoiding unripe ones - only ripe berries are loaded into 45-kg bags. The skin is removed and the two seeds inside are dried and roasted.

Larger farms can produce cheaper coffee by cutting the entire tree and processing the ripe and unripe berries together.

This is not illegal, but it is detrimental to quality. What is illegal? When scammers sell cheaper beans as if they were expensive ones. Or when they mix cheap and expensive coffee without indicating this on the label. And they get away with it because the origin of coffee is very difficult to trace - there are thousands and thousands of really small producers around the world. They collect the beans, then put them in trucks, and then put them in containers and ship them on ships. There is so much movement in these supply chains that it is possible for someone to tamper with the products.

But you can do your due diligence. Buy from reputable sources. Check the origin of your coffee. Look for certifications such as the Specialty Coffee Association on the packaging.

Saffron

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Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, but the "red gold" market is badly spoiled by cheaper products. True saffron is obtained from the three tiny strands or stigmas of the Crocus sativus flower. There are only three such stigmas in one flower. The matter is complicated by the fact that the crocus blooms only 2-3 days, and you need to collect the stigmas on the first day of the bud opening, and even by hand, and even before sunrise. A kilogram of saffron is obtained from 150 flowers. It can cost $000.

In Kashmir, the delicate flowers take about two years to grow before farmers like Ashik Rashid can pick them.

Just like his family has done for nearly a century. Ashik and his father spend two and a half hours collecting enough saffron to fill a tiny container.

At such spice prices, scammers can make a lot of money by deceiving buyers. It has even been reported that criminals make millions by selling hay, horsehair, coconut fibers instead of saffron.

How can consumers be sure they are buying real saffron?

You can do the water test. Types of saffron are put into water or milk. It should turn yellow very slowly, and not instantly turn red or orange. This is a test for the purity of saffron. The threads of artificial saffron will also fall apart easily, while the real one will retain its shape.

And then there's the price. Paying more for products does not guarantee their authenticity. But a low price definitely guarantees that the product is fake. You won't get cheap saffron.

How criminals get away with product fraud

Some crime groups are so well structured that they operate like companies with multiple departments. They even have consumer trends teams that decide what to counterfeit next.

Then the scammers will look for suppliers and set up elaborate factories in abandoned warehouses.

They operate in areas where real products are produced, so their movements are not suspicious. Criminals will package a fake product to look like the real thing, down to a fake batch number. In order to sell their fakes, they often create fake websites or posts. They ship products across multiple countries, which makes tracking much more difficult.

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Europol helped crack down on 40 organized crime groups involved in food fraud in 2022. This includes an Italian gang that exports fake olive oil, a chain that passes off gardenia as saffron in Spain, and a fake spice company in South Africa.

But in the presence of large international supply chains, it is very difficult to catch all the fakes.

Although the USDA tests imported meat and eggs, the FDA is responsible for this. It is estimated that only 1-2% of imported food is tested by the FDA.

It is possible to reduce the level of fraud. The main thing to remember is how much real products should cost, and always read the list of ingredients on the package.

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