Food fraud commonly refers to the deliberate and economically motivated adulteration and mislabeling of food, but more broadly defined it also includes food theft, simulation that makes a fraudulent food product look like the legitimate product it copies, diversion, and overrun (Moyer et al. 2017). It is a longstanding and persistent challenge that impacts the global food sector; according to some estimates, food fraud results in annual costs of $40 billion (Food Standards Agency 2020). The complexity of globalized agri-food supply chains which are long, fast-moving, and involve a large number of intermediaries, coupled with lax regulatory monitoring and oversight and lenient penalties, create opportunities for both legitimate actors who operate in the food supply chain and criminal organizations to engage in food fraud
