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Article: The fight to foil oil fraud.
- Article from:
- Prepared Foods
- Article date:
- August 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 BNP Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Truth in labeling is a universal goal for the food industry and the folks who police it. So when cheaper edible oils are blended with a more expensive, pure vegetable oil product, the labeling should reflect that ingredient mix accordingly. When it doesn't, that's fraud.
"Impurities in vegetable oils due to either accidental contamination or deliberate adulteration have been a major problem in the past," says Richard Swift of the UK-based Leatherhead Food Research Assoc. (LFRA), Surrey, England. For example, in the early 1980s, a Singapore dealer adulterated cottonseed oil with palm oil and would have benefited to the tune of $14 million (U.S.) if the fraud had not ...