Opinion by: Fraser Edwards, co-founder and CEO, Cheqd
Brutal honesty has its place, particularly when confronting discomfort, so right here’s one that may’t be sweetened with honey: 96% of imported honey within the UK is pretend! Assessments discovered that 24 of 25 jars had been suspicious or didn’t meet regulatory requirements.
Self-sovereign identification (SSI) can repair this.
The UK Meals Requirements Company and the European Fee each urge reform to sort out this concern by creating a strong traceability database inside provide chain networks to make sure shopper transparency and belief. Information, nevertheless, just isn’t the issue. The problem is individuals tampering with it.
This isn’t the primary time merchandise have been revealed to be inauthentic, with the Honey Authenticity Community highlighting that one-third of all honey merchandise had been pretend in 2020, a fraudulent trade amounting to three.4 billion euros ($3.65 million) of counterfeit items getting into the EU in 2023, as reported by the European Fee.
What’s EMA, and the way does it have an effect on honey?
Economically motivated adulteration (EMA) involves deliberately substituting priceless elements for inexpensive merchandise comparable to sweeteners or low-quality oil. This observe results in extreme financial and well being issues — and, in some instances, illness — because of the toxic components from substitute merchandise.
The adulteration usually entails creating an ultra-diluted mix containing minimal dietary worth, and counterfeiters name it… honey.
Fraudsters dilute the product with excessive fructose corn syrup or enhance the thickness with starch or gelatine. These adulterants intently mimic honey’s chemical profile, making it extraordinarily tough to detect with conventional checks comparable to isotope ratio mass spectrometry. Pretend honey lacks the important enzymes that give actual honey its taste and vitamins. To make issues worse, honey’s traits fluctuate based mostly on nectar sources, the harvest season, geography and extra.
Some firms filter out pollen content material, a key identifier of a honey’s geographical origin, earlier than exporting it to middleman international locations like Vietnam or India to additional obfuscate the method. As soon as that is executed, the merchandise are dropped at grocery store cabinets and labeled with false certifications to command increased costs. This tactic exploits the truth that many regulatory our bodies lack the means to confirm each cargo.
The hidden price of meals fraud
The provision chain is profoundly fractured, as a jar of honey passes six to eight key factors within the provide chain earlier than it arrives on the cabinets within the UK. Present practices make authenticity verification extraordinarily tough. Coupled with the inefficient paper-based forms that makes it laborious to trace origin obscuration makes an attempt in middleman international locations, we can’t reliably decide the true extent of meals fraud.
One Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimate means that no less than 1% of the worldwide meals trade, probably as much as $40 billion per yr, is affected — and it could possibly be even increased.
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Fraudulent practices don’t simply hurt shoppers — they destroy beekeepers’ livelihoods, flooding the market and destroying profitability for authentic merchants. Ziya Sahin, a Turkish beekeeper, explained the frustration with meals fraud regulation:
“Our beekeepers are indignant, and so they ask why we’re not doing one thing to cease it. However now we have no authority to examine,” he stated. “I’m not even allowed to ask road sellers whether or not their honey is actual.”
Whereas there’s a rising appetite for extra dependable testing and stricter enforcement, options are lagging. The EU’s newest try to repair this? Digital product passports are designed to trace honey’s origins and composition, however they’re already being criticized as ineffective and simple to control, finally leaving the door open for fraud to proceed.
EU passports are an ineffective answer
The European Union’s Digital Product Passport goals to sort out this by enhancing traceability and transparency in its provide chains. By 2030, all items within the EU should have a digital product passport containing detailed info on the product’s lifecycle, origins and environmental results.
Whereas the concept sounds promising, it fails to acknowledge the extent to which fraudsters can forge certificates and obscure origins by passing merchandise by means of middleman international locations alongside officers who flip a blind eye.
On the core of this challenge is belief. Regardless of historical past displaying that these guidelines can and will probably be bent, we depend on governments to implement legal guidelines and laws. Know-how, alternatively, is agnostic and doesn’t care about cash or incentives.
That is the elemental flaw of the EU’s strategy — a system constructed on human oversight that’s susceptible to the corruption these provide chains are already recognized for.
Self-sovereign identification (SSI) for merchandise
Many individuals are already conscious of the scalability trilemma, however the belief triangle is a key idea in SSI that defines how belief is established between issuers, holders and verifiers. It makes fraud way more difficult as a result of each product should be backed by a verifiable credential from a trusted supply to show it’s actual.
Issuers, like producers or certification our bodies, create and signal verifiable credentials that attest to a product’s authenticity. The holder, usually the product proprietor, shops and presents these credentials when required. Verifiers — comparable to retailers, customs officers or shoppers — can test the credentials’ validity with out counting on a government.
Verifiable credentials are protected by cryptography. If somebody tries to promote pretend merchandise, their lacking or invalid credentials will instantly reveal the fraud.
Authorities reforms should lengthen past present regulatory oversight and discover the strategy outlined within the belief trilemma to safeguard provide chains from widespread adulteration and fraud.
SSI gives the underlying infrastructure essential to reliably observe the identification of merchandise throughout a number of our bodies, requirements and areas. By enabling tamper-proof, end-to-end traceability in each single product — whether or not a jar of honey or a designer purse — SSI ensures adequate validators affirm the information is right to sort out fraud and obfuscation makes an attempt.
SSI additionally empowers shoppers to independently confirm merchandise with out counting on third-party databases. Consumers can scan the product to authenticate its origin and historical past instantly by way of the cryptographic certifications confirmed by the validators to additional cut back the chance of misinformation even when it reaches the cabinets. This might additionally assist cut back corruption and inefficiencies, as many checks are made on paper, which may be simply altered and is a sluggish course of.
As honey fraud strategies proceed to develop, so do these merchandise’ hurt to shoppers and native companies. Steps taken to sort out these strategies should thus additionally broaden. The EU’s Digital Product Passports goal to enhance traceability; however sadly, they fall in need of fraudsters’ sophistication. Implementation of SSI is a needed step to successfully deal with the extent fraudsters take to make sure their product arrives on cabinets.
Opinion by: Fraser Edwards, co-founder and CEO, Cheqd.
This text is for common info functions and isn’t meant to be and shouldn’t be taken as authorized or funding recommendation. The views, ideas, and opinions expressed listed below are the writer’s alone and don’t essentially replicate or characterize the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
