Food fraud is understood as the production and marketing of food that does not comply with current regulations (intentional act) by undertakings or private individuals with a view to deceiving purchasers by deriving undue economic advantage from them and/or causing harm to the health of consumers. Food fraud is divided into: 

• Commercial food fraud is realized to obtain illicit profits through inconsistencies and/ or falsifications relating to the name, origin, quality, quantity of food, causing economic damage to the customer.
• Health food fraud which represents a health risk for consumers because the foodstuffs are adulterated with chemicals and/or contaminants potentially harmful to human health.

The different types of food frauds are: 

• Dilution: mixing an ingredient with high value with an ingredient of lower value. (ex: olive oil diluted with tea tree oil)
• Substitution: replacing an ingredient of the product of high value with another ingredient of lower value (ex: sunflower oil partially replaced with mineral oil)
• Concealment: hiding the low quality of a food product or food ingredient (ex: dangerous dyes applied to fresh fruit to cover its defects)
• Unapproved enhancement: adding unknown and undeclared substances to food products in order to enhance their quality properties (ex: addition of Sudan dye in spices)
• Counterfeiting: infringement of intellectual property rights (ex: trademark falsification)
• Mislabelling: placing false claims on the label/packaging (ex: country of origin falsification)
• Grey market: production, theft, diversion (ex: sale of undeclared products)

Food fraud is distinct from a non-compliance with the legislation in force, if the case study corresponds to four main conditions: breach of Community rules on the agri-food chain, deception of customers, undue economic advantage and intentional action.

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