Imagine more than 450,000 diners are preparing to order meals at NYC’s best restaurants for the 2017 NYC Restaurant Week. These diners are counting on a culinary experience after paying a hefty reservation fee. Now imagine that food at all the NYC restaurants has been intentionally tampered with, and diners are ingesting low-quality adulterated products. An entire network of people now are buzzing about the fraudulent food – word spreads rapidly. Widespread fear, social media blasts, and the press are all questioning the integrity of the NYC restaurants, the product itself, and the suppliers. It may take weeks to find the source of adulteration especially if there is an entire network of people to investigate. This is the dramatic side of food fraud, but it’s important to realize this scenario is possible.
On February 16, 2017 the Italian government arrested 33 suspects whose allegations include exporting fake extra virgin olive oil to the United States. According to Olive Oil Times, the suspects were involved in an elaborate olive oil scheme to import olive pomace oil, a product that’s extracted from already-pressed fruit pulp using chemical solvents, then labeling the low-quality, adulterated oil products as extra virgin olive oil and exporting it to the US. Those products were sold through retail chains in New York, Boston and Chicago. Retail chains that supply NYC restaurants products for high profile events such as NYC Restaurant Week. Such incidents could have a significant economic impact.
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