siliconindia | | May 20198e knew the world would not be the same. Some people laughed. A few cried. Most people were silent" - J. Robert Oppenheimer. Yes; today, the world has changed indeed, from the world we knew a few decades back. Even if I compare it from my childhood, the changes I have witnessed are flabbergasting. One of such changes I have witnessed is the people's mind, the attitude, and the greed for success & money. The greed to rise higher than the rest. And this greed of success, power and money has somewhere led man towards committing frauds, cheat-ing our own people. These frauds today are in all walks of our life. And that has not even left-out the fuel we need to even think to commit a fraud - `Food'.Competitive markets for valued raw materials, global supply chain with increasing length and complexity, and inconsistent global regulatory requirements have made us shift our focus from risk to vulnerability. We have always talked about HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), a tool used for food safety and preven-tion from contamination. However today, with the shift of our focus from just food safety risks from uninten-tional contaminations from Biological, Physical, and Chemical factors, to vulnerable factors for intentional contamination, we have to use other tools like TACCP (Threat Analysis Critical Control Point) and VACCP (Vulnerable Analysis Critical Control Point), in addition to HACCP to have a sound Food safety system in our Food businesses. Economically Motivated Adulterations, Malicious threats, Extortions, Espionage, and Counterfeiting are the types of supply chain threats & frauds that are evident today. Motives behind such attacks could be many, such as money, sabotage, revenge and more. To make this clearer, let us see some of the examples of `Food Frauds', that have taken place in the recent past:One of the most common has been in the labelling; as some products labelled as `Organic', but the product in actual not being organic. Use of prohibited artificial co-lours in `Dal', use of Argemone oil that can cause severe health issues, pesticides found in food leading to fatali-ties, and many more...the list can go on and on. Many consumers have suffered because of these adulterants in terms of minor to major health issues, and in some cases, deaths. So, to understand a fraud, we need to understand the true motives behind an attack, and identify the kind of attackers who could shape these frauds. These attackers could be Extortionists, Opportunists, Extremists, Dis-gruntled individuals, Hacktivists and Cyber criminals, or could be professional criminals. Therefore, to stop a fraud and defend our food from being intentionally con-taminated, we need to identify the threats in our supply chain, in our own management systems, our infrastruc-ture, and our layouts. This identification of threats, and analyzing them to control any kind of intentional or un-intentional contamination is TACCP. This is the first step towards preventing fraud. At times, we need to go further deep and think out-of-the-box to identify the true threat. This leads us to the next step of identifying the Vulnera-ble factors around each threat identified; keeping in mind the kind of motives of an attack and the attackers around us. These vulnerable factors could be responsible for the intentional contamination which may lead to an unsafe product. This is VACCP, done towards Food defence. IN MY OPINION''WBy Santhosh Jayaram, Partner & Head of Sustainability & CSR, and Aviekal Kakkar, Associate Director ­ Sustainability ­ Food Safety, KPMGSanthosh has over 19 years of experience and is a regular speaker on important platforms on Sustainability in the country. He is recognized as a thought leader in the South-Asian region in the areas of sustainability and climate change.Aviekal is the Associate Director at KPMG and being a food critic and reviewer, he also speaks at Amity University, Noida as a visiting faculty to talk about food safety trainings. He previously worked at various organizations at New Zealand and UAE. FOOD FRAUD & FOOD DEFENCE
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