The UK has a new weapon in the fight against organised crime as of this week, and the food industry should take note.

Already described as the UK equivalent of the FBI, the National Crime Agency (NCA) replaces the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and bills itself as “a new crime-fighting agency with national and international reach and the mandate and powers to work in partnership with other law enforcement organisations to bring the full weight of the law to bear in cutting serious and organised crime.”

So far, so PR. But with food fraud high on the agenda following the horsemeat scandal, the launch of the NCA could present a very real opportunity for the food industry to turn over a new leaf in its approach to fighting food-related crime.

As we highlighted during our Horsegate coverage earlier this year, anti-fraud specialists believe the food industry needs to develop a better understanding of what organised crime means in the 21st century, and how it can take advantage of weaknesses in supply chains. The term “organised crime” tends to conjure up images of the Cosa Nostra, but that idea is outdated, one expert told us at the time. “It’s no longer about big, highly structured organisations like the mafia but small, highly mobile groups that come together around a particular opportunity and then disperse again. What might appear to be petty crime – a dodgy burger, for example – can often be part of a much wider net of criminal activity.”

If the industry is to have any hope of stopping future horsemeat-style incidents, it needs to forge much closer links with formal intelligence agencies – and that’s where the new NCA, which is expected to have a much greater focus on working with third parties, could come in.

It is not clear at this stage precisely what resources the NCA will have to deal specifically with food-related matters (the initial headlines this week were dominated by its rather sexier strike against the Silk Road drug-trafficking website) or how it intends to work with industry and bodies like the Food Standards Agency. Asked about its future relationship with the NCA this week, the FSA would say only that it used to have a close working relationship with SOCA on food fraud “and we look forward to continuing this relationship with the NCA”.

What is clear, however, is that major frauds like Horsegate wreak substantial economic and reputational damage. And it’s not just the meat sector that’s potentially vulnerable. A recent report by the European Parliament on food fraud, published at the end of last month, featured a list of the top vulnerable food categories – and meat didn’t even make the top 10.

In light of this, the food industry should have every incentive to be proactive in ensuring food-related crimes are high on the NCA’s agenda.

Topics