Fraud in labelling is usually committed in the omissions. The art of labelling is not being caught at it.

I was put to write this article by BC Doan’s Switching to Organic Foods where she gives tips on how to read labels. Actually, writing or composing a label is an art form, it is also fraudulent. I will try to explain why in this article.

Years back, I was commissioned by a Swiss company to write the label texts for a product called Chlorella pyrenoidosa. I should get everything into four sentences in each German, French, and English, whereby the information content in all three languages had to be identical. I still think it was one of the hardest writings I have ever done.

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The product was registered under the novel foods act in Switzerland, and therefore I had severe limitations into what I was allowed to say. E.g. words like vitamin or trace element were completely out of bounds, others like health severely limited. What it ran down to were four sentences to convey to the buyer that he bought a product with lots of vitamins and trace elements that were good for your health without saying it in so many words.

As I had to do quite a lot of preliminary study, I came to several conclusions about labels, labelling, and information content of labels. For my own amusement, I also set up four categories of fraudulent labelling which I want to share with you.

Fraudulent labelling by law

This category is the one you will be thinking of when reading fraudulent labelling. It is, in my opinion, a capital crime and should be severely punished. As is, these people usually buy themselves free on the proceeds of the fraud.

Famous cases that I am able to remember without researching them were the German Kebab case, where three year old meat was relabelled as fresh and then sold to the Kebab producers; the Italian Mozzarella case, where parts of mice and other unsavoury ingredients where found in Mozzarella products of most producers; the Argentinean beef case, where beef was shipped from Poland to Argentina, was relabelled as Argentinean and then shipped to Germany.

I haven’t been comfortable eating either Kebab or Mozzarella since. The beef case had an added twist to it, as the Polish producers received money from the EU to export the meat so it would not come onto the European market. None of the persons concerned in either three cases ever went to prison. Just as obviously, these labels were just fraudulent and not artful.

Fraudulent labelling by ethics

Into this section I moved those labels that I thought fraudulent but were in keeping with the law. E.g. a product known as Tyrolean Ham sold mainly in Germany. The pigs are born and brought up in Germany. They are then transported by lorry to the Tyrolean part of Italy where they are butchered and the ham is cured. The finished Ham is then transported back to Germany by lorry.

Into the same category I put chickens labelled as free range. They are brought up in cages as long as possible and then spend an exact amount of time outside. The poor beasts must hear the clock ticking every moment they spend out there.

Fraudulent labelling by morals

Into this section I moved those labels that are built on allusions to a legal labelling process. To stick with the free range chickens, to use that on a label, the producer must follow legal rules set up. In this case the legal rules are minimal, but still, they are there. A producer might now find a catch phrase that gives the impression of his product being free range. Let’s say he claims that his product is produced from freely ranging chickens.

A further example is certain imprints granted by some organisation or other, where a producer might just invent his own organisation and imprint. All these labels have in common that they might or might not be against the law depending on the judges.

Fraudulent labelling by default

This section contains the labels of products that may not show important information as the law forbids them to do so. To get my beloved tomatoes in, a shop is not allowed to write or publish any allusion to lycopene, even though that would be of interest to the consumer.

To get back to the starting point, Chlorella pyrenoidosa have high iron and beta-carotene content. They also make people vomit who suffer from Escherichia Coli. None of this may be printed or published by the producer because it might give the impression that the algae are healthy.

Fraudulent labelling by omission

Yes, I know, I made four categories. The point is, all labels fall into this last section. That’s where art meets fraud. The art is to omit everything negative if legally possible and pile in as much positive hype as laws allow. It’s like drawing a straight line while dodging legal hurdles at the same time.

For the consumer this means that labels are the perfect carrier of false information. If you start really reading the labels on food, you will spend more time figuring out what they didn’t tell you than reading what they tell you. The exercise is good for you as it trains your brain daily at top level.

Perfect examples for artful labelling are all products in the light or diet section. If these products make any claim to a reduction of anything, be it sugar, salt, or fat, they must be able to prove that. On the other hand, they must not tell you what they added as long as it is naturally contained in the product anyhow. Therefore, sugar free products contain more salt and more fat than normal, as otherwise they would taste like the packaging they are sold in. The same principle is used for fat free and salt free products where sugar replaces one or the other. Obviously, the addition of toxic waste like artificial sweeteners must be declared.

I am sure, there are hundreds of examples out there just to be put into my categories. If you haven’t encountered any, start reading the labels really carefully and figure out what they don’t tell you.