Employee whistleblowing is powerful. And risky — Ray Dirks was an insurance company analyst. In 1973 Ray was told about a massive scam being perpetrated by senior executives in a publicly listed insurance company in the USA. He decided to reveal it to financial regulators. After blowing the whistle on the fraud, Dirks was left fearing for…

Wealthy countries are not immune to child labour problems — Child labour violations pose major challenges in the ethical sourcing of food. But we usually imagine that child exploitation is only a problem in developing countries. Unfortunately, even the wealthiest countries have child labour problems. And in one wealthy country, the size of the problem is growing terrifyingly fast. …

What Makes Mould Edible? — Mouldy food is spoiled food, right? And definitely not safe to eat. Except for a few cheeses, they’re okay to eat with mould. Oh, and salami, which has fine white mould on its outer casing. But definitely no other foods are safe to eat if they have mould, right? Except…

What is being done about AMR in food? — Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an urgent global threat which resulted in the deaths of 5 million people globally in 2019, according to the US CDC. By comparison, COVID-19 has killed 6.9 million people in the three years since the pandemic began (source). Antimicrobial resistance, therefore, is more deadly than the…

Food safety risk management is more than science — Risk analysis is a field of work that includes risk assessment, risk communication, and risk management. And risk management, it turns out, is more a question of politics than science. Risk analysis = risk assessment + risk communication + risk management Risk assessment is a scientific process that attempts to…

A cultured meat company has used cutting-edge technology to create woolly mammoth meatballs — Do you eat endangered animals? Probably not (… although don’t get me started on fish fraud and fraudulent fishing of protected species…. threatened species do end up on plates more often than you might expect). Would you eat an extinct animal? Like, say a woolly mammoth? Last month, scientists from…

It’s an important element of food fraud risk mitigation. But does Horizon Scanning actually work? — Horizon scanning is the act of trying to anticipate threats that might develop in the future. It’s used in all sorts of fields and industries. For example, in health care, horizon scanning is used to provide early warnings for pandemics. …

New science could lead to fast authenticity tests for maple syrup and other sweeteners — Maple syrup, yum. Humans are biologically programmed to love sweet foods, which are of course, high in energy. Sweet foods cause our brains to release dopamine, an addiction-linked neurotransmitter, so it is no surprise that sweet-flavoured foods are highly prized and enjoyable to eat. Maple syrup is made from the…

Save the planet by following this dietary guidance. Just don’t expect to get all the nutrients you need (if you’re a woman) — The EAT-Lancet commission published their now famous ‘let’s save the earth and humanity’ dietary recommendations in 2019. The diet they propose is designed to reduce the environmental impact of food production. Just one problem: women of reproductive age somehow got treated as a minority group by the boffins who developed…