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Food crime: reporting and preventing it

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Preventing crime in a food business

To prevent food crime and fraud in your business you should:

  • know the signs of food crime
  • train your staff
  • check the businesses in your supply chain
  • put crime and fraud prevention procedures in place
  • stay up-to-date with risks that affect your business

This guide is also available in Welsh (Cymraeg).

Signs of food crime

Everyone in your business should know the possible signs of food crime, such as:

  • customer complaints about the quality or taste
  • products or ingredients not matching their description
  • suppliers unable to provide traceability records
  • your own testing showing poor quality or false information
  • paperwork problems, like invoices not matching product labels
  • suppliers saying things that do not match your knowledge of the market
  • prices that seem too good to be true
  • staff acting defensively or keeping sole control of things
  • strange cash transactions

These signs do not confirm food crime, but they can be clues that something is wrong.

Training staff

Make it clear to your staff that fraud will not be accepted in the workplace.

Share the signs of food crime with staff. Make sure staff feel safe raising concerns. Share a clear whistleblowing process with them.

Let staff know they can also report concerns to the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU).

Checking the businesses in your supply chain

Before working with a new supplier or customer check they’re legitimate by:

Developing crime and fraud prevention processes

You should review your business processes and find ways to prevent food fraud and crime.

To prevent fraud you can:

  • complete a food fraud resilience self-assessment tool designed by the NFCU
  • complete a Vulnerability Assessment and Critical Control Points (VACCP) assessment - these are offered by several food safety training businesses
  • have an online meeting with the NFCU where they will assess your business risk level - email the NFCU’s prevention team to arrange this
  • go to an in-person training event where they simulate a food fraud incident - email the NFCU’s prevention team to join

To prevent an attack on your food chain, you should follow ‘PAS 96:2017’ guidance to develop and implement a Threat Assessment Critical Control Points (TACCP) assessment.

National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) prevention team
nfcu.prevention@food.gov.uk

Get updates about the food industry

To stay informed about food crime and risks affecting the industry, you can:

View a printable version of the whole guide