Food fraud costs $50B yearly — Can blockchain stop it?
The post Food fraud costs $50B yearly — Can blockchain stop it? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Food fraud siphons up to $50 billion from the global food industry every year and endangers public health. When deployed rigorously and realistically, blockchain could prevent this shadowy crime. The problem? It comes with a high price tag. Scalability, cost, interoperability and integration pose significant barriers. Not to mention the privacy concerns, regulatory uncertainty and long path to stakeholder adoption. But food fraud isn’t going anywhere. As David Carvalho, CEO of Naoris Protocol, observed: “Most people would be surprised to hear that food fraud is an issue, but it’s a major one, costing the global food industry between $30 billion and $50 billion every year. That’s a small percentage of the sector’s total value — over $12 trillion — but still equivalent to the GDP of a small country like Malta.” So, what’s to be done? And how can blockchain implementation truly be achieved? Food fraud bites deeper than we realize The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) outlines that food fraud involves purposefully deceiving customers about the quality or content of the food they buy. Essentially, it’s the intentional substitution, addition or removal of materials for economic gain. The typologies of fraud are diverse and sophisticated. These include mislabeling, theft, counterfeiting and dilution. Recent examples of food fraud that have occurred across Asia and the Pacific. Source: FOA Real-world examples abound. Melamine has been added to milk in China to falsify protein content. Horsemeat has been sold as beef in Europe. Olive oil is often diluted with cheaper vegetable oils. The economic toll is staggering. But the actual cost is far higher when accounting for reputational damage, regulatory compliance, legal battles and the erosion of consumer loyalty. In some cases, the human cost can be far more devastating; the 2008 melamine scandal in China harmed over…
Filed under: News - @ June 19, 2025 6:25 am