Food and Beverage

Not everything with a good label contains something good. This is the conclusion drawn by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA). In rice packages, the expensive basmati rice yielded a miss ratio of 54% (!). A total of 10% of the inspected expensive food products were fake. As long as food products are classified with blurry terms such as “bio” or “organic” instead of concrete or standardized specifications, consumer protection is difficult. Semiluxury products such as cigarettes and old wines or brandies are already classics in the counterfeiting industry.

For good reason all foreign alcoholic products were banned from Russian shelves in early July 2007. Imitation cigarettes – smuggled into Western Europe primarily from China, Eastern Europe and the Ukraine – are difficult to differentiate from the real ones by the consumer.

The smoker is cheated with low-quality tobaccos and 160% more tar and arsenic in the smoke while the brand manufacturer suffers from revenue losses and the state from tax losses in considerable amounts. It’s a game with few winners and many losers. Security features in the brand products and controlled distribution routes are a necessity especially for these product categories. U-NICA offers valuable support and technological contribution to fight the increasing product piracy in this field.