Crime, in all its different guises, is never far from the surface when it comes to food and drink.
In addition to a 50% year-on-year rise in instances of shoplifting and violence against shopworkers, food fraud is also never far away. Last month, it emerged potentially “lethal” counterfeit bottles of Glen’s Vodka were in circulation – the latest in a long list of misdeeds dating back to 2013’s Horsegate scandal.
Freight crime is also on the rise. Thefts from lorries cost the UK economy £250m a year, according to recent research by the Road Haulage Association.
But if the revelations of the past few days are anything to go by, food businesses are now having to contend with the increasing threat of sophisticated cons from fraudulent buyers too.
As The Grocer and many more media outlets have reported over the past few days, London-based artisan cheese retailer and distributor Neal’s Yard Dairy was left reeling earlier this month, when a seemingly legitimate buyer – posing as a well-known wholesale distributor for a major French retailer – made off with 22 tonnes of British cheddar.
A £300k haul
The haul was worth over £300,000, and perhaps much more to the criminals who took it. Various theories are circulating as to where the haul will be sold – from Russia to the Middle East and China.
Neal’s Yard said the high monetary value of the cheeses “likely made them a particular target for the thieves”. And they were worth enough for the fraudsters to put in plenty of effort to make themselves convincing.
The “elaborate” fraud involved a detailed contract that outlined payment terms, the supplier revealed. Conversations with the fraudster demonstrated they had a deep understanding of the sector. But after receiving the cheddar, they disappeared into the ether without paying a penny.
“The complexity of the operation made it difficult to detect the fraud until it was too late,” the company said. MD Sarah Stewart yesterday told The Grocer the loss of the cheese – enough to fill two lorries – was a “significant hit” for the business, not least because Neal’s Yard had rapidly moved to honour payments to cheesemakers affected by the crime.
Most of all, though, Stewart was “really concerned” about the wider picture, which suggests a rise in thefts against smaller suppliers.
Read more: Neal’s Yard Dairy loses 22 tonnes of cheese in £300k fraud
As soon as Neal’s Yard spoke about the theft late on Friday, Stewart was quickly contacted by Chris Swales, owner of Suffolk-based artisan salmon smokehouse Chapel & Swan. He described an eerily similar experience over the summer, in which he lost £37,500 worth of smoked salmon apparently destined for the same French supermarket chain.
Swales told The Grocer his experience, first reported on The Times website earlier today, had already prompted further calls from businesses that had also been defrauded by a dodgy buyer.
Organised crime involvement
The recurring theme running throughout these incidents – as well as the sector’s problems with shoplifting, food fraud and freight crime – is the involvement of organised crime.
Swales tracked down his shipment, which had inexplicably been delivered by a mainstream logistics operator, to a backstreet warehouse in east London. It’s hardly the normal location for a consignment of upmarket smoked salmon destined for a major French retailer.
There, he found the location to be populated by sinister-looking men, “one with an unmuzzled XL Bully, the other with a Rottweiler”. Swales quickly made himself scarce.
Both he and Stewart believe this kind of serious crime is on the rise. “There have always been rogues and charlatans, but I’ve never seen fraud on this scale,” Swales says. “Organised crime is very, very deep across all sorts of channels.”
Limited response
Worryingly, both reported the incident to the police, yet received a woeful response. A colleague of Stewart’s had to chase up an online report of the crime at a local police station, while Swales had to deploy “friend of a friend” backchannels to police officers to get any sort of update.
And despite the need to fill in countless post-Brexit export certificates for any overseas shipment, the pair are yet to hear back on any leads from the border too.
In much the same way stolen commodities such as cars, mobile phones and even copper make their way out of the UK, Swales suggests the criminals would “have had to have their own way to get it out – paying people to turn a blind eye” on all steps of the journey.
The apparent lack of police interest in this type of crime, and the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit’s focus on fighting traditional food fraud such as adulteration and passing off, means there is a gap in protection for businesses, Swales says. He feels this “lackadaisical approach” to the food sector’s soft underbelly is clearly apparent to criminals, and needs to be addressed urgently.
These incidents won’t have been terminal for either Chapel & Swan or Neal’s Yard, but they could be for other businesses affected by such fraud.
The crimes call into question whether small suppliers can continue to build trading relationships on trust, when we are starting to see just how much of a target they can be.
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