{"id":19582,"date":"2025-04-30T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/eu-digital-product-passports-wont-solve-food-fraud-but-blockchain-can\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T15:00:00","slug":"eu-digital-product-passports-wont-solve-food-fraud-but-blockchain-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/eu-digital-product-passports-wont-solve-food-fraud-but-blockchain-can\/","title":{"rendered":"EU digital product passports won\u2019t solve food fraud, but blockchain can"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion by: Fraser Edwards, co-founder and CEO, Cheqd<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Brutal honesty has its place, especially when confronting discomfort, so here\u2019s one that can\u2019t be sweetened with honey: 96% of imported honey in the UK is fake! Tests found that 24 of 25 jars were suspicious<\/a> or didn\u2019t meet regulatory standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) can fix this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The UK Food Standards Agency and the European Commission both urge reform to tackle this concern by creating a robust traceability database<\/a> within supply chain networks to ensure consumer transparency and trust. Data, however, is not the problem. The issue is people tampering with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is not the first time products have been revealed to be inauthentic, with the Honey Authenticity Network highlighting<\/a> that one-third of all honey products were fake in 2020, a fraudulent industry amounting<\/a> to 3.4 billion euros ($3.65 million) of counterfeit goods entering the EU in 2023, as reported by the European Commission.<\/p>\n

What is EMA, and how does it affect honey?<\/h2>\n

Economically motivated adulteration (EMA) involves<\/a> intentionally substituting valuable ingredients for less expensive products such as sweeteners or low-quality oil. This practice leads to severe economic and health complications \u2014 and, in some cases, disease \u2014 due to the poisonous additives from substitute products.<\/p>\n

The adulteration often involves creating an ultra-diluted blend containing minimal nutritional value, and counterfeiters call it\u2026 honey.<\/p>\n

Fraudsters<\/a> dilute the product with high fructose corn syrup or increase the thickness with starch or gelatine. These adulterants closely mimic honey\u2019s chemical profile, making it extremely difficult to detect with traditional tests such as isotope ratio mass spectrometry<\/a>. Fake honey lacks the essential enzymes that give real honey its flavor and nutrients. To make matters worse, honey\u2019s characteristics vary based on nectar sources, the harvest season, geography and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some companies filter out<\/a> pollen content, a key identifier of a honey\u2019s geographical origin, before exporting it to intermediary countries like Vietnam or India to further obfuscate the process. Once this is done, the products are brought to supermarket shelves and labeled with false certifications to command higher prices. This tactic exploits the fact that many regulatory bodies lack the means to verify every shipment.<\/p>\n

The hidden cost of food fraud<\/h2>\n

The supply chain is profoundly fractured, as a jar of honey passes six to eight key points in the supply chain before it arrives on the shelves in the UK. Current practices make authenticity verification extremely difficult. Coupled with the inefficient paper-based bureaucracy that makes it hard to track origin obscuration attempts in intermediary countries, we cannot reliably determine the true extent of food fraud.<\/p>\n

One Food and Drug Administration (FDA)<\/a> estimate suggests that at least 1% of the global food industry, potentially up to $40 billion per year, is affected \u2014 and it could be even higher.<\/p>\n

Recent: W<\/strong><\/em>hat is decentralized identity in blockchain?<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Fraudulent practices don\u2019t just harm consumers \u2014 they destroy beekeepers\u2019 livelihoods, flooding the market and destroying profitability for legitimate traders. Ziya Sahin, a Turkish beekeeper, explained<\/a> the frustration with food fraud regulation:<\/p>\n

\u201cOur beekeepers are angry, and they ask why we\u2019re not doing something to stop it. But we have no authority to inspect,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not even allowed to ask street sellers whether their honey is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s a growing appetite<\/a> for more reliable testing and stricter enforcement, solutions are lagging. The EU\u2019s latest attempt to fix this? Digital product passports are designed to track honey\u2019s origins and composition, but they are already being criticized as ineffective and easy to manipulate, ultimately leaving the door open for fraud to continue.<\/p>\n

EU passports are an ineffective solution\u00a0<\/h2>\n

The European Union\u2019s Digital Product Passport aims to tackle this by enhancing traceability and transparency in its supply chains. By 2030, all goods in the EU must have a digital product passport<\/a> containing detailed information on the product\u2019s lifecycle, origins and environmental effects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the idea sounds promising, it fails to recognize the extent to which fraudsters can forge certificates and obscure origins by passing products through intermediary countries alongside officials who turn a blind eye.<\/p>\n

At the core of this issue is trust. Despite history showing that these rules can and will be bent, we rely on governments to implement laws and regulations. Technology, on the other hand, is agnostic and doesn\u2019t care about money or incentives.<\/p>\n

This is the fundamental flaw of the EU\u2019s approach \u2014 a system built on human oversight that is vulnerable to the corruption these supply chains are already known for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) for products<\/h2>\n

Many people are already aware of the scalability trilemma, but the trust triangle is a key concept in SSI that defines how trust is established between issuers, holders and verifiers. It makes fraud much more challenging because every product must be backed by a verifiable credential from a trusted source to prove it\u2019s real.<\/p>\n

Issuers, like manufacturers or certification bodies, create and sign verifiable credentials that attest to a product\u2019s authenticity. The holder, typically the product owner, stores and presents these credentials when required. Verifiers \u2014 such as retailers, customs officials or consumers \u2014 can check the credentials\u2019 validity without relying on a central authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Verifiable credentials are protected by cryptography. If someone tries to sell fake products, their missing or invalid credentials will immediately reveal the fraud.<\/p>\n

Government reforms must extend beyond current regulatory oversight and explore the approach outlined in the trust trilemma to safeguard supply chains from widespread adulteration and fraud.<\/p>\n

SSI<\/a> provides the underlying infrastructure necessary to reliably track the identity of products across multiple bodies, standards and regions. By enabling tamper-proof, end-to-end traceability in every single product \u2014 whether a jar of honey or a designer handbag \u2014 SSI ensures sufficient validators confirm the data is correct to tackle fraud and obfuscation attempts.<\/p>\n

SSI also empowers consumers to independently verify products without relying on third-party databases. Buyers can scan the product to authenticate its origin and history directly via the cryptographic certifications confirmed by the validators to further reduce the risk of misinformation even if it reaches the shelves. This would also help reduce corruption and inefficiencies, as many checks are made on paper, which can be easily altered and is a slow process.<\/p>\n

As honey fraud methods continue to expand, so do these products\u2019 harm to consumers and local businesses. Steps taken to tackle these methods must thus also broaden. The EU\u2019s Digital Product Passports aim to improve traceability; but unfortunately, they fall short of fraudsters\u2019 sophistication. Implementation of SSI is a necessary step to effectively address the extent fraudsters take to ensure their product arrives on shelves.<\/p>\n

Opinion by: Fraser Edwards, co-founder and CEO, Cheqd. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author\u2019s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opinion by: Fraser Edwards, co-founder and CEO, Cheqd Brutal honesty has its place, especially when confronting discomfort, so here\u2019s one that can\u2019t be sweetened with honey: 96% of imported honey in the UK is fake! Tests found that 24 of 25 jars were suspicious or didn\u2019t meet regulatory standards.\u00a0 Self-sovereign identity (SSI) can fix this.\u00a0 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gold.creditcard\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}