To help combat economically motivated adulteration (EMA), the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and Battelle have partnered to provide EMAlert, a web-based software tool that allows food manufacturers to rapidly analyze and understand their individual, company-specific EMA vulnerabilities in the manufacturing process. Some estimate that food fraud costs the world economy $49 billion annually, and it has been estimated that about 10% of the food we buy is likely adulterated.
“The impact on any particular company can range from minor economic damage to the potential loss of economic viability of the organization,” said Shannon Cooksey, vice president of science policy and regulatory affairs for GMA. “GMA joined with Battelle, the world’s largest non-profit R&D organization, to develop a better way of prioritizing the actual risks to specific commodity supply chains at any time, so that decision makers can best apply their resources to the vulnerabilities of greatest importance.”
EMAlert works by providing quantitative estimates of an organization’s vulnerability to EMA for each commodity included in the analysis based on a combination of characteristic attributes and subject matter expert-based weightings. The approach focuses on predicting fraudulent tendencies similar to approaches used by Battelle for the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to predict terrorist tendencies and preferences. By analyzing the attributes that contribute strongly to existing vulnerabilities, food safety and defense professionals may also identify alternative strategies, such as identifying suppliers from a more favorable region of the world or investing in research to develop identity tests for targeted commodities.
