SUNDAY SCREENING: ‘The Food Mafia – How Criminals Infiltrate the Global Food Supply Chain’ (2024)

Eye-opening insight into the fragile food supply chain, from field to the shelf at home, all the levels and layers a product moves through are vulnerable to criminal intent. Many actors are at play, all trying to skim their slice. Horse-meat labelled as beef. Honey diluted with cheap sugar syrups. Counterfeit extra-virgin olive oil. Food crime is a multi-billion dollar industry affecting everything from the cheapest to most expensive ingredient. 10% of what we eat is thought to be degraded. “What we know for sure is that food fraud is growing exponentially and it’s more and more worrying,” states one consumer advocate. Criminal syndicates are infiltrating the global food supply chain, undermining the ability of consumers to trust what is on the label and what ends up on their plate. In Italy, entire sectors of the food industry are controlled by the mafia. All over the world, well-organised criminal networks work together to penetrate complex supply chains. Scams range from the intentional mislabelling of inferior products in order to pass them off as premium items, to the substitution of one food stuff for something else entirely. The profits are enormous. But what are the risks to the consumer? Watch: