Responding to the Global Food Fraud Crisis: What Is the Role of Intellectual Property and Trade Law?

This chapter concerns food fraud, including what it is, what is being done to counter it, and what we might do to counter it better. The concept of food fraud has tended to be overshadowed by other food-related terms like food security and food safety. Nowadays, food inauthenticity is not just about the content of what we are eating. The ways that food can be inauthentic has increased, encompassing where it comes from and how it is produced. The more information a product carries, the greater the opportunities for deceit. Non-product-related production and process methods are of as much interest to many consumers as what they are made of, as is product origin. We claim that geographical indications (GI) as signs promoting club goods may be helpful as a means of countering certain forms of food fraud, and as such forms one of this chapter’s original contributions to the food fraud literature. Although GI-protected products like Champagne and Scotch whisky are of course traded around the world, the way that they exalt localness and non-industrial production may be important in the present context. One socio-economic matter requiring further reflection is that quality and authenticity indicators, even as their usage expands, still tend to be associated with niche products and those that are more than averagely expensive. However, in the long term, a turn to localism, which GIs represent and promote, will most likely benefit all consumers, rich and poor.