Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Did you know that you could be eating fake honey or using counterfeit olive oil? Food fraud is when food or drink is sold in a way that is deceptive to the consumer. And it's not as uncommon as we'd like to think. Well, joining me now to tell me more is Eva Zavizzano of the Smart Agro Hub, who's working in the European food fraud community of practice. Eva, you're very welcome to the programme.
Thank you.
Good morning, Claire. Thank you for the invitation.
Chapter 2: What is food fraud and how common is it?
And as you mentioned, I'm here. I'm coming from Greece and I'm here in Dublin because the European Food Fraud Community of Practice and Horizon EU project is organizing in Dublin the first authentic food festival and conference in the University College of Dublin. So good morning. Well, you're very welcome and you're very welcome to Dublin, too. I mentioned fake honey.
And I think that is one where, you know, if you're buying honey, it's possibly because you don't want to sweeten your porridge or your yogurt with refined sugar. So you think you're doing a good thing by picking it up off the shelf. But in many cases, we're buying honey that's not honey. Explain it to us. Yes, exactly. Honey is not honey. Olive oil is not olive oil.
Or the meat that we are buying or in many cases that we eat in the burger. is not from beef. But please allow me to explain it better using the example of olive oil, as my country is producing a lot of tons of olive oil per year. But it's the same thing as the honey adulteration. So it's very simple. someone will produce olive oil and he will sell olive oil for, let's say, 20 euros.
Well, it's better, let's say, if we adulterate the olive oil with sunflower oil, because the producer will have more profit and more benefits from that. So it's a fraud. But it's very difficult for the consumer to spot, isn't it, Eva? I mean, we are almost powerless here. Exactly. It's very difficult.
And for example, me as a consumer, it's very difficult to understand which product is, let's say, the wrong one. But OK, we can understand that from the price. If you go to the supermarket and you see honey, for example, and you see that the honey costs one euro and another one costs 15 euros.
the consumer has to think why the first product is so much cheaper than the second one from the moment that we're talking about honey so this is a first sign how to
start thinking as consumer so but you use that sorry to interrupt you eva but you use the example of the olive oil in your country which is sold at the higher price but it is adulterated so in some cases we are buying what we think is a very high quality product but it's not it's not yeah yeah and that's why uh we're here the european food food community of practice
because we are trying to build a community. Our consortium is a diverse group of stakeholders, scientists, regulators, large and small-sized industries, and we are all working and trying to build a community We are all consumers, of course, and we try to send the message to everyone that please be aware. We are talking about health issues. You have to be aware of food fraud. And we give
the weapons to the consumers, how to understand. For example, the first example that I gave you, it's about the price. It's the first thing that we have to check while we're buying the products. Yes, so you get what you pay for is the starting point.
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