Food fraud ranges from substituting a species or ingredient to selling a product with a false description, altered weight, or forged documentation. Available statistics do not measure one single worldwide prevalence rate: they combine expert estimates, official notifications, targeted compliance samples, and enforcement outcomes. The figures below keep those different scopes separate.
Contents
- Global estimates and documented harm
- What European notifications measure
- Products most often implicated in Europe
- How suspected fraud is carried out
- Honey authenticity testing
- Seafood short-weighting
- UK food-crime enforcement
Global estimates and documented harm
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cites expert estimates that food fraud affects about 1% of the global food industry. The same FDA source cites an estimated annual worldwide cost of about $10 billion to $15 billion, while more recent expert estimates put the possible annual cost as high as $40 billion. These are expert estimates cited by the FDA, not FDA-produced measurements, and the source does not present them as a complete census.
The potential harm is not limited to financial loss or misleading labels. The FDA reports that the 2008 melamine fraud in Chinese infant formula caused more than 300,000 illnesses, 50,000 hospitalizations, and at least 6 deaths. Those figures describe that specific incident in China in 2008; they should not be treated as a general rate for food fraud events.
The United Kingdom’s Food Crime Strategic Assessment 2024 estimates that food crime costs the UK up to £2 billion per year. “Up to” marks this as an upper-bound estimate rather than a measured annual total. Together, the global and UK figures indicate the scale of the economic problem, but they use different methods and geographies.
What European notifications measure
The European Commission recorded 758 Agri-Food Fraud Network notifications in 2023, an increase of 26.3% from 2022. Of those notifications, 344 concerned product categories other than the separate illegal cats-and-dogs action. The count represents network notifications and suspicions, not every fraud event occurring in Europe and not proof that every suspicion was confirmed.
The countries generating the largest shares of EU Agri-Food Fraud Network fraud-suspicion notifications in 2023 were Belgium at 18.3%, Germany at 16.5%, and France at 10.7%. These percentages describe the distribution of notifications created by countries in the network; they do not establish that food fraud was more prevalent among consumers or producers in one country than another.
The European Commission also reported product-origin shares for the food-fraud notifications it analyzed in 2023. Products originating within the EU represented 71.1%, products imported from non-EU countries represented 24%, and origin was unknown or under investigation for 4.8%.
The broader cooperation systems contained additional fraud-suspicion signals. The Commission identified fraud-suspicion elements in 1,075 Administrative Assistance and Cooperation (AAC) notifications and in 1,625 Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) notifications in 2023. These are system-specific notification counts, so they should not be added to the 758 Agri-Food Fraud Network notifications as though they were one unduplicated total.
The key distinction is coverage. A notification can show that authorities or partners identified a concern, but it cannot by itself show the total amount of fraud in the market, the probability that a randomly selected food is fraudulent, or that an allegation was finally proven.
Products most often implicated in Europe
The European Commission’s 2023 category chart shows where food-fraud notifications were concentrated. Meat and meat products other than poultry led the listed categories with 46 notifications. Honey and royal jelly followed with 31, while fats and oils recorded 30.
| Product category | 2023 notifications |
|---|---|
| Meat and meat products other than poultry | 46 |
| Honey and royal jelly | 31 |
| Fats and oils | 30 |
| Dietetic foods, supplements and fortified foods | 27 |
| Fish and products thereof | 24 |
| Poultry meat and poultry products | 20 |
| Milk and milk products | 19 |
| Fruits and vegetables | 8 |
| Cereals and bakery products | 7 |
The chart also recorded 27 notifications for dietetic foods, food supplements, and fortified foods; 24 for fish and products thereof; 20 for poultry meat and poultry meat products; and 19 for milk and milk products. Fruits and vegetables accounted for 8 notifications, while cereals and bakery products accounted for 7.
These category counts describe the European Commission’s 2023 notification chart, not the quantities sold, the consumer exposure associated with each category, or a risk ranking for every product on the market. A category with more notifications may receive more scrutiny or generate more cross-border reporting, and a lower count does not prove lower risk.
How suspected fraud is carried out
Adulteration or product tampering accounted for 40.4% of the European Commission’s food-fraud notifications in 2023. Misdescription, mislabeling, or misbranding accounted for 23.8%, and grey-market activity represented 18.3%. Document forgery represented 9.5%, while counterfeit activity represented 7.8%.
Some practices were reported as counts rather than percentages. Species or ingredient substitution appeared in 59 European food-fraud notifications in 2023. Unapproved or undeclared treatment, process, or product issues appeared in 49 notifications. Fourteen of those 49 involved dietetic foods, supplements, or fortified foods. Nine fraud-suspicion requests involved smuggling of plant-protection products.
The percentages and counts refer to the Commission’s notification classifications and may describe overlapping signals or different views of the same network activity. They are useful for understanding the kinds of suspicion authorities encounter, but they should not be interpreted as a probability that a particular label or product is fraudulent.
Honey authenticity testing
FDA honey assignments provide a more specific view of targeted compliance sampling. In FY2025, the FDA tested 102 honey samples and found 4 violative samples for undeclared added sweeteners, a 4% violation rate among those tested. Two violative samples were domestically produced and two were imported.
Earlier assignments produced different sample results. From April 2022 through July 2023, the FDA tested 107 imported honey samples and found 3 violative samples, reported as a 3% violation rate for that assignment. From January 2021 through March 2022, the FDA found 14 violative samples among 144 imported honey samples, reported as a 10% violation rate. In that FY2021–22 assignment, 75 samples came from bulk shipments and 69 came from retail shipments.
| FDA honey assignment | Samples tested | Violative samples | Reported rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025, domestic and imported | 102 | 4 | 4% |
| April 2022–July 2023, imported | 107 | 3 | 3% |
| January 2021–March 2022, imported | 144 | 14 | 10% |
The FDA reported that more than 70% of honey consumed in the United States is imported, an estimate associated with 2022. That context helps explain why import-focused testing matters, but it does not convert the assignment results into a national prevalence estimate.
The FY2025 FDA honey assignment, FY2022–23 assignment, and FY2021–22 assignment were targeted compliance samples. The FDA says they were not designed for country-rate comparisons or statistical comparison across assignments. Their reported rates apply only to the samples tested in each period.
Seafood short-weighting
The FDA’s 2022–2024 short-weighting assignment collected 28 retail-packaged frozen seafood samples imported from four countries. Ten samples were violative for short weight, a 36% rate within that sample. The violative samples were short-weighted by between 2.3% and 9.9%.
The sample-level results show the range more precisely. The FDA recorded 2.30% short weight in a China-origin frozen squid sample, 2.29% in one Indonesia-origin frozen shrimp sample, 9.90% in another Indonesia-origin frozen shrimp sample, and 3.14% in a further Indonesia-origin frozen shrimp sample. A Vietnam-origin frozen squid sample was recorded at 9.62% short weight.
The FDA assignment results and its sample report describe imported frozen seafood collected for this assignment. The 36% figure is not a prevalence estimate for all seafood: it is the share of the 28 targeted samples that were violative. The findings also do not show that every product from a named country has the same short-weight risk.
UK food-crime enforcement
Enforcement statistics show activity and outcomes rather than market prevalence. In the first two quarters of the UK National Food Crime Unit’s 2024/25 financial year, the unit achieved 41 disruptions and recorded 74 outcomes. By the end of quarter two, 62% of closed operations had achieved a disruption or outcome.
During the December 2023–October 2024 update period, UK National Food Crime Unit activity with partners removed 18.8 tonnes of illicit product from sale. The National Food Crime Unit annual update also reports that three UK defendants received prison sentences for poultry-related fraud involving a reported loss of £318,347.
Other reported cases illustrate different kinds of quantified harm. A UK shellfish case involved suspected criminal profits of around £250,000. A prosecution involving falsified salmonella-testing certificates resulted in a £50,830.75 fine. These case figures are outcomes or allegations tied to specific investigations, not estimates of all UK food crime.
Taken together, the statistics show why food-fraud data must be read with its denominator and measurement type. Global figures are expert estimates; European figures are notifications and suspicions; honey and seafood figures come from targeted FDA samples; and UK figures describe disruption, prosecutions, product removal, or case-level financial amounts. Each can inform food-safety decisions, but none alone supplies a universal rate for food fraud.