On 25 November 2025, The EEF-CoP and SecureFood projects hosted an online roundtable to explore how vulnerabilities in the food supply chain relate to the emergence of food fraud.
The 90-minute session followed a structured agenda:
- Welcome & Meeting Objectives
- Short SecureFood Project Overview (Ben Moore, Carr)
- Insights on Food System Resilience (Luca Urciuoli, ZLC)
- Insights on Where Food Fraud Emerges (Dr Timothy Wilkes, LGC)
- Panel Discussion: Where Do Resilience Gaps and Fraud Hotspots Align?
- Wrap-Up & Key Conclusions
Key Discussion Points
Participants noted that primary production, especially farming, remains one of the most pressured and vulnerable stages of the supply chain due to environmental, economic, and security challenges. As supply chains become longer and more complex, with multiple intermediaries and lengthy distribution routes, opportunities for diversion, mislabelling, and other fraudulent practices increase. Geopolitical disruptions, transport bottlenecks, and slow-building stresses such as climate change further weaken resilience.
The roundtable highlighted several early warning indicators useful for spotting potential issues:
- Imbalances between reported inputs and outputs
- Unexpected price spikes
- Large differences between wholesale and retail prices
- Growing numbers of quality complaints
These signals can indicate both instability and the potential presence of fraud.
A major challenge raised was the limited sharing of information on fraud incidents. Companies often hesitate due to confidentiality concerns and reputational risks, making it harder for the sector to detect patterns and respond collectively. Building trust, encouraging safe channels for data sharing, and improving coordinated monitoring were identified as important steps toward strengthening both resilience and fraud prevention.
Conclusion
The roundtable reinforced that supply chain resilience and food fraud mitigation are deeply interconnected. Enhancing one requires progress in the other, and collaboration across projects, industry, and policymakers will be essential in the years ahead.
Watch the full roundtable recording:
The EFF-CoP project invites you to join the EFF-CoP community by registering to the EFF-COP Virtual Hub.
