Is Your Pantry Packed With Fake Ingredients?
Some of the most recognizable pantry staples — including honey, olive oil, and spices — are now among the products most routinely tampered with or passed off as something they’re not.
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Published on February 4, 2026
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- Food fraud is on the rise globally, affecting everyday staples such as olive oil, honey, and spices.
- The FDA estimates that food fraud costs the global food industry up to $40 billion annually and can pose serious health risks, including exposure to toxic additives.
- Between 2020 and 2023, reported food fraud incidents increased by more than 1,000%, underscoring how rapidly the problem is growing.
It’s easy to take for granted our year-round access to Mediterranean olive oil, even though the harvest season typically runs only from October to January. The same goes for vanilla bean, which shows up in countless forms whenever we want it, despite being harvested for just a few months each summer in major production regions like Madagascar.
Most of us rarely think about the global supply chain that has to function in near-perfect sync to keep these products reliably stocked on grocery store shelves every single day of the year. But that system isn’t flawless. And as consumers continue to demand fresh ingredients at rock-bottom prices—regardless of natural growing cycles—those cracks are widening. The result: a surge in food fraud, with shoppers ultimately paying the price. Here’s what you need to know.
What is food fraud?
Food fraud, as explained by DigiComply, an AI-powered food compliance platform, is “a wide range of deliberate and intentional actions undertaken by an individual or corporation dealing in food to deceive consumers.”
Food fraud, which the FDA also calls Economically Motivated Adulteration (EMA), can take many forms — including adulteration, mislabeling, and substitution of lower-quality ingredients. This can include seafood getting mislabeled as a more expensive product, spices getting mixed with other parts of a plant to bulk production, and juices being diluted with water to boost profit margins.
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Another common form of food fraud is falsely claiming that a particular product comes from a specific region of the world, such as when you think you’re buying Alaskan salmon, when in fact it was farm-raised elsewhere.
Food & Wine recently reported on a version of this, with potentially mislabeled shark meat sold in stores across the U.S. A 2025 study by researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill found that of the 29 samples of shark meat they tested, 93% were “ambiguously labeled as ‘shark,'” and one of the two products labeled at the species level was mislabeled. That means just one product was correctly labeled at the point of sale.
Which foods are most susceptible to fraud?
Which foods are most susceptible to fraud?
Olive oil often tops lists of foods vulnerable to fraud because it’s expensive, widely traded, and its authenticity is harder to verify without laboratory tests. In late 2023, Spanish and Italian authorities seized more than 260,000 liters of olive oil falsely labeled as extra virgin and arrested suspects linked to a multinational fraud operation. In 2024, The Guardian reported that olive oil fraud reached an all-time high in the European Union, with most of the fraudulent olive oil mixed with cheaper alternatives and several labeled with “misleading origin” labels. And in late 2025, the Food and Economic Security Authority (ASAE) in Portugal seized more than 17,000 liters of fraudulent olive oil that was actually just standard cooking oil.
Another often adulterated food is honey, which is also prone to wide price swings and difficult to detect without advanced testing. In November 2025, the ASAE seized 5 tons of fraudulent honey in Portugal. In Turkey, one of the world’s largest honey-producing nations, authorities seized nearly $30 million worth of fraudulent honey over the course of just a few months in 2025 alone.
Spices are another concern, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explaining that not only do people sometimes mix in other plant parts to bulk up production, they may also use “dyes to give spices a certain color, especially when the color strongly impacts the perception of quality.” It added, “Lead-based dyes and other industrial dyes that can cause adverse health problems such as cancer have been found in spices such as chili powder, turmeric, and cumin.”
How to spot food fraud at the store
While it’s nearly impossible for consumers to detect food fraud with certainty, a few common red flags can help reduce the risk.
Be skeptical of prices that seem too good to be true. Authentic extra-virgin olive oil, honey, and spices are labor-intensive to produce; unusually low prices may indicate dilution or substitution.
Read labels carefully. Vague terms like “packed in” or a lack of country-of-origin information can be warning signs.
Look for transparency. Brands that clearly disclose sourcing, harvest dates, and testing practices are more likely to prioritize authenticity.
Buy whole when possible. Whole spices, single-origin oils, and raw honey are generally harder to adulterate than highly processed products.
Trust your senses. Off aromas, muted flavors, or unusual textures may indicate that a product isn’t what it claims to be.
How big a problem is food fraud, really?
Beyond being an annoyance, food fraud can be deadly. The FDA cited a specific example from 2008, when infant formula manufacturers in China added melamine (a chemical used in plastics) to mimic protein in the powder. This led to kidney failure in infants, along with 50,000 hospitalizations and “at least” six deaths.
Beyond death (though really, what more do you need to know?), food fraud is seriously expensive. Estimating its economic impact is challenging because the point is to be sneaky and go undetected; however, the FDA noted that it likely “affects 1% of the global food industry at a cost of about $10-$15 billion a year, although some more recent expert estimates put the cost as high as $40 billion a year.”
And it’s a problem that appears to be growing. According to DigiComply’s report, between 2020 and 2023, food fraud incidents increased by 1,041%. “This was indicative of the critical shift of risks that food supply chains are exposed to globally,” it added. “Assuming that as early as May 2024, there were already 2479 incidents recorded, the number could further escalate; urgent measures are needed to provide a comprehensive answer to food fraud.”
Is there anything I can do about food fraud?
For the individual consumer, there really isn’t much you can do to prevent this. There are ways to be more aware of it and protect yourself from purchasing fraudulent products. However, it does take some work, including getting to know the brands and retailers you buy from, identifying those with transparent sourcing and traceability practices, and paying closer attention to pricing. If it’s too good a deal to be true, it likely is.
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You can also do a little personal sleuthing by following the European Commission’s Food Fraud Tracker and following the science happening at McGill University, where researchers have developed an AI-powered method to verify the origin of honey and stop fraudsters in their tracks, as well as at the University of Athens, where researchers are working on rapid authenticity testing for extra virgin olive oil. And, of course, you can always visit your local farmers market to meet the person making honey down the block. Consider asking to visit the farm. This way, you can see where it’s coming from and say “thanks” to the creatures making it all at once.
