A sense of ginger fraud: prevalence and deconstruction of the China-European union supply chain

Qing Han; Sara W. Erasmus; Christopher T. Elliott; Saskia M. van Ruth

doi:10.1038/s41538-022-00166-y

A sense of ginger fraud: prevalence and deconstruction of the China-European union supply chain

Qing Han, Sara W. Erasmus, Christopher T. Elliott, Saskia M. van Ruth^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

As an important spice, ginger has been widely distributed in the Chinese and the European Union (EU) markets, the two largest trading areas, in various forms. The ginger supply chain between China and the EU is long and complex, providing opportunities for fraudsters to deceive consumers. However, limited attention has been given to food fraud in ginger, and there is a lack of research on this topic. In this review, ginger was used as an example for interpreting the fraud issues within low-priced and high-trade volume spice products. This review aims to summarize the open access information from food and food fraud databases, literature, and stakeholders about ginger fraud, and to map, deconstruct and analyse the food fraud vulnerability in the supply chain. In addition, potential testing strategies to detect ginger fraud were also discussed. The investigation of food fraud databases, a semi-structured literature review and online interviews with stakeholders revealed that adulteration is the major fraud type in ginger products. And the most vulnerable ginger products are ground ginger and finely processed ginger. The ginger supply chain from China to the EU comprises nine stages and is medium vulnerable to food fraud, both in regard to opportunities and motivational drivers. To ensure the integrity of the ginger supply chain, there is a need to apply fraud vulnerability tools in the companies of the industry. In addition, screening and confirmatory techniques based on the characteristics of ginger should be utilised for monitoring fraud issues in the supply chain.

Original language	English
Article number	51
Pages (from-to)	51
Number of pages	16
Journal	npj Science of Food
Volume	6
Issue number	1
Early online date	04 Nov 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-022-00166-y
Publication status	Published - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge all the companies for their participation in the study. This work was supported by China Scholarship Council (grant agreement No. 201903250123) and the EU-China-Safe project (http://www.euchinasafe.eu/) which is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 727864. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are that of the authors and the European Commission does not accept any liability in this regard.

Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge all the companies for their participation in the study. This work was supported by China Scholarship Council (grant agreement No. 201903250123) and the EU-China-Safe project ( http://www.euchinasafe.eu/ ) which is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 727864. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are that of the authors and the European Commission does not accept any liability in this regard.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Food Science
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1038/s41538-022-00166-yLicence: CC BY

A sense of ginger fraud: prevalence and deconstruction of the China-European union supply chain
© 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.
Final published version, 1.04 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "A sense of ginger fraud: prevalence and deconstruction of the China-European union supply chain",

abstract = "As an important spice, ginger has been widely distributed in the Chinese and the European Union (EU) markets, the two largest trading areas, in various forms. The ginger supply chain between China and the EU is long and complex, providing opportunities for fraudsters to deceive consumers. However, limited attention has been given to food fraud in ginger, and there is a lack of research on this topic. In this review, ginger was used as an example for interpreting the fraud issues within low-priced and high-trade volume spice products. This review aims to summarize the open access information from food and food fraud databases, literature, and stakeholders about ginger fraud, and to map, deconstruct and analyse the food fraud vulnerability in the supply chain. In addition, potential testing strategies to detect ginger fraud were also discussed. The investigation of food fraud databases, a semi-structured literature review and online interviews with stakeholders revealed that adulteration is the major fraud type in ginger products. And the most vulnerable ginger products are ground ginger and finely processed ginger. The ginger supply chain from China to the EU comprises nine stages and is medium vulnerable to food fraud, both in regard to opportunities and motivational drivers. To ensure the integrity of the ginger supply chain, there is a need to apply fraud vulnerability tools in the companies of the industry. In addition, screening and confirmatory techniques based on the characteristics of ginger should be utilised for monitoring fraud issues in the supply chain.",

author = "Qing Han and Erasmus, {Sara W.} and Elliott, {Christopher T.} and {van Ruth}, {Saskia M.}",

note = "Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge all the companies for their participation in the study. This work was supported by China Scholarship Council (grant agreement No. 201903250123) and the EU-China-Safe project (http://www.euchinasafe.eu/) which is funded by the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 727864. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are that of the authors and the European Commission does not accept any liability in this regard. Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge all the companies for their participation in the study. This work was supported by China Scholarship Council (grant agreement No. 201903250123) and the EU-China-Safe project ( http://www.euchinasafe.eu/ ) which is funded by the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 727864. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are that of the authors and the European Commission does not accept any liability in this regard. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s).",

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N2 - As an important spice, ginger has been widely distributed in the Chinese and the European Union (EU) markets, the two largest trading areas, in various forms. The ginger supply chain between China and the EU is long and complex, providing opportunities for fraudsters to deceive consumers. However, limited attention has been given to food fraud in ginger, and there is a lack of research on this topic. In this review, ginger was used as an example for interpreting the fraud issues within low-priced and high-trade volume spice products. This review aims to summarize the open access information from food and food fraud databases, literature, and stakeholders about ginger fraud, and to map, deconstruct and analyse the food fraud vulnerability in the supply chain. In addition, potential testing strategies to detect ginger fraud were also discussed. The investigation of food fraud databases, a semi-structured literature review and online interviews with stakeholders revealed that adulteration is the major fraud type in ginger products. And the most vulnerable ginger products are ground ginger and finely processed ginger. The ginger supply chain from China to the EU comprises nine stages and is medium vulnerable to food fraud, both in regard to opportunities and motivational drivers. To ensure the integrity of the ginger supply chain, there is a need to apply fraud vulnerability tools in the companies of the industry. In addition, screening and confirmatory techniques based on the characteristics of ginger should be utilised for monitoring fraud issues in the supply chain.

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A sense of ginger fraud: prevalence and deconstruction of the China-European union supply chain

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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