Following the “horse-gate” scandal that rocked Europe in 2013, we have just seen another “radiation-gate” incident emerging in Japan and Taiwan last week. Taiwan seized 283 Japanese food products with counterfeit Chinese-language labels, possibly altered in Japan, originally from radiation-stricken Fukushima areas, and ordered them taken off the shelves in local supermarkets. This kind of food fraud incidents on both hemispheres suggests that existing regulations governing food labelling and routine inspection to ensure provenance and traceability, no matter how strict they are, have their own limitations. To avoid food fraudsters turning multi-country food chains into a massive scam that severely undermines consumers’ trust, a preventive measure to consider is the roll-out of a ‘common’ digital platform monitoring all stages of food production and supply chain visibility.
