There have been laws protecting food standards since Magna Carta first prescribed weights and measures for grain and wine. Yet food fraud has never gone away; and food crime, defined as deliberately acting against the public interest, is thought to cost the British food industry £11bn a year. Two men have been arrested in the Netherlands, Europe’s largest producer of eggs and egg products, on suspicion of supplying a banned agent, fipronil, to kill lice infestations. The structure of the UK food retail industry might have been designed to incentivise bad behaviour. In the horsemeat scandal, adulterated beef sold for little more than half the price of pure mince.

Source: The Guardian August 11, 2017 18:22 UTC