Food Adulteration: Its Challenges and Impacts

Abstract

Food is any substance composed of carbohydrates, water, fats and proteins, which can be eaten or drunk by humans or animals for nutrition or very important aspect for life. Food products are often a target of adulteration while supply chains usually deal with perishable products that could be harmful to consumers if they are not managed properly. There are two types of food adulteration; namely intentional/deliberate adulteration done by dishonest producers, retailers and processors for financial up liftmen and incidental/unintentional which may be done at the time of producing, handling and/or storing, etc. Different food items and drinks prone for adulteration include: dairy products, cereals grains, fats and oils, and others like honey, juice, peppers, etc. Food adulteration has a great impact on producers/farmers, consumers, enterprises and government. The main challenges are public health problem, lack of acceptance in the market due to lack of originality, decrease in consumer confidence. Regulations that penalize such a criminal traders and dishonest producers/processors that adulterate different food products in various places  should be applied. Therefore, the objective for this review was  to document food adulteration has a great impact on producers and  consumers as well as to awareness creation for public.

Keywords: adulteration, food items, incidental, intentional, public health.