“Show me your horizon scanning.” The food safety manager opens a mail folder holding 214 newsletters, every one still marked unread. Ten minutes later the auditor picks the organic certificate out of a supplier file and asks how it was verified. “The supplier sent it.” Two findings, and both cost about an hour a month to avoid.
In short
- Food fraud horizon scanning is a scheduled, recorded check of prices, harvests, alerts, recalls and trade news for the material groups you buy.
- A subscription is not a scan. The evidence is a dated log showing what was checked, what was found and what was decided.
- About an hour a month is enough for most sites, with procurement present for fifteen minutes.
- A signal that changes a factor you scored leads to a re-score of the vulnerability assessment.
- Verify a supplier certificate on the certification body’s or scheme owner’s public database: status, site address, scope, product categories and dates.
Both topics sit in module 3 of the Food Fraud Coordinator Course (R1 750, 8 hours, online). In module 4 you score a vulnerability assessment and a person marks it.
What is food fraud horizon scanning?
Food fraud horizon scanning is the routine, recorded search for outside information that changes the fraud vulnerability of the materials you buy: price moves, harvest failures, regulator alerts, recalls, and regulatory or trade news. It is scoped to your own material groups, done on a schedule, and it ends in a decision each time: no change, watch, or re-score.
BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9 section 5.4 asks the site to have access to information on historical and developing threats to its raw materials. FSSC 22000 clause 2.5.4 requires a documented vulnerability assessment and a mitigation plan that is kept up to date. Our post on what each scheme requires for TACCP, VACCP and HACCP sets the schemes side by side.
The folder of unopened newsletters fails twice over. Nothing ties it to the olive oil or paprika you actually buy, and nothing shows a decision.
An auditor wants a person, a date and a conclusion.
Which signals and free sources should you watch for your material groups?
Watch five kinds of signal for each material group: price, harvest and supply, alerts and recalls, regulatory change, and trade news. Free public sources cover all five. Name five or six in your procedure and check the same ones monthly.
The signals
- Price. A sharp rise increases the reward for diluting or substituting. An offer well below the market is a signal in itself.
- Harvest and supply. Drought, crop disease, export bans, port delays. Shortage is when the wrong material finds a buyer.
- Alerts and recalls. Adulteration, substitution or false origin reported for your material or your origin.
- Regulatory change. New limits, new import controls, a new test method.
- Trade news. A supplier changes ownership, a new origin appears, a processor closes.
The sources, in general terms
- Regulator alert portals, such as the EU’s public RASFF window, which you can filter by product category and country of origin.
- National recall notices in South Africa and in the countries you buy from or sell into.
- Trade price reports: commodity summaries, crop estimates, industry bulletins. Your own purchase price history counts too.
- Guidance and position papers published by the scheme owners.
Paid alert services exist. None of the schemes named here requires one. Module 5 of the VACCP food fraud coordinator training covers free and current horizon scanning sources.
What does a one hour monthly horizon scanning routine look like?
Book one hour on a fixed day each month and run the same five steps. A month with nothing found still gets an entry.
1
Open the log (10 minutes)
Read last month’s watch items and note what happened to each.
2
Alerts and recalls (20 minutes)
Search each named source by material and origin. Record source, date range and any hit.
3
Price and harvest (15 minutes)
Sit with the buyer. Which prices moved beyond your set percentage? Any shortage, new origin or new agent?
4
Decide (10 minutes)
For every signal: no change, watch, or re-score. Each action gets an owner and a date.
5
Sign and file (5 minutes)
Name, date, next scan date. Re-score items go to the food fraud team.
The log needs seven columns and no software: date, who scanned, sources checked, material group, signal found, decision, action with owner. Twelve such pages a year beat any dashboard.
When should a signal trigger a re-score of the vulnerability assessment?
Re-score when a signal changes something you scored. If the assessment rated a material on price and availability, history of fraud, supply chain length or ease of detection, then news that shifts any of those means the old score no longer describes the material. Record the link both ways.
Worked example
Mzansi Fresh Meals is ASC’s training case, a fictional Gauteng chilled ready meal plant. It buys extra virgin olive oil. After poor harvests in southern Europe, olive oil prices rose steeply through 2023 and into 2024.
In the monthly scan the buyer mentions a new agent offering oil at 20 percent under the market. Two signals at once: a stronger incentive to cheat, and an offer the market does not explain.
Decision: re-score. The team lifts the opportunity score for oils from 2 to 4 on its five point scale, asks the agent to name the packer, and adds authenticity testing on the next three deliveries. The log entry carries the assessment revision number, and the assessment’s change history cites the log date.
The scoring itself is in our guide on how to do a food fraud vulnerability assessment. Scores may go down as well as up, provided the log shows why.
Moving a score from 2 to 4 is a judgement call, and an auditor will ask you to defend it. In module 4 of the food fraud vulnerability assessment training you score three material groups, a person marks your work and sends coaching notes, and you download your own completed assessment.
Start the VACCP food fraud coordinator course, R1 750
How do you verify a supplier certificate properly?
Go to a source the supplier does not control. Search for the site on the public database of the issuing certification body or the scheme owner, then compare what the database says with the PDF in your file. Keep dated evidence.
Several GFSI scheme owners run public directories of certificated sites, and the EU and US organic programmes keep public databases of certified operators. Where no listing exists, email the certification body using contact details from its own website, not those printed on the certificate.
| Check | What to confirm on the database | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Listed as current and valid today. | Suspended, withdrawn, or not listed at all. |
| Legal entity and site address | The site that makes or packs your material, at the address on your delivery documents. | A head office or a sister site is certified. Yours is not. |
| Scope | The activity you rely on: processing, packing, trading, storage. | Storage and distribution only, and you buy a manufactured product. |
| Product categories | Your product is inside the listed categories. For organic, the product and the standard you claim against are listed. | Certified organic for dried herbs. You buy their organic oil. |
| Dates | Issue and expiry match the PDF, as does the certificate number. | The PDF differs from the database. Treat it as possible document fraud. |
Initial the screenshot and diarise the expiry. Recheck at renewal and at the annual supplier review, because certificates get suspended mid term and nobody posts you a letter.
How far up the chain should you look when you buy through a distributor or agent?
Look as far as the last site that manufactured or packed the product. A distributor’s certificate covers the distributor’s activity, usually storage or trading. It says nothing about the factory. Ask who made the material, obtain that site’s certificate and verify it on the database the same way.
BRCGS Issue 9 expects you to know the last manufacturer or packer when you buy through an agent or broker. For claims that depend on an unbroken certified chain, such as organic, check which operators between the farm and you need their own certification under that programme, and verify each one.
An agent who will not disclose the source is giving you information. Score it. Module 5 of the course deals with how far up the chain to score when buying through a distributor.
If a US customer’s questionnaire moves on to deliberate contamination, see our post on the FDA Intentional Adulteration rule for South African exporters.
What does the Food Fraud Coordinator Course cover, and what does it cost?
The Food Fraud Coordinator Course is 8 hours of expert level, self paced online study for R1 750. It is built on the seven vulnerability factors in ISO 22002-100:2025 clause 16.3 and mapped to FSSC 22000, BRCGS, SQF, IFS and the GFSI Benchmarking Requirements.
Course facts
| Course | Food Fraud Coordinator Course: VACCP, the Schemes and the Prevention Plan |
|---|---|
| Provider | ASC Food Safety Training |
| What you leave with | Your own completed vulnerability assessment, marked by a person with coaching notes, to download and keep |
| Level | Expert |
| Time | 8 hours, at your own pace |
| Price | R1 750 |
| Format | Online, self paced, lifetime access. Five modules. |
| Assessment | A graded practical on Mzansi Fresh Meals: three material groups scored online, marked by a person, with coaching notes and a second attempt. |
| Certificate | Certificate on completion |
| Who it is for | Whoever owns the site food fraud assessment and prevention plan, with procurement alongside |
Module 3 covers horizon scanning that survives an audit, verifying a certificate properly and handling a suspected fraud. Module 5 adds the law when fraud reaches your label and a working calendar.
Enrol in the Food Fraud Coordinator Course, R1 750
Questions people ask before they enrol
How long does the Food Fraud Coordinator Course take?
About 8 hours of self paced online study across five modules. You can stop and pick up again whenever you like, and access is for life, so the horizon scanning and certificate lessons are there when you next need them.
What does it cost, and can I pay from outside South Africa?
R1 750, paid once by card or EFT through PayFast. Prices are in rand. An indicative USD, EUR and GBP equivalent is shown on the course page, and payment settles in rand.
How is the course assessed?
Module 4 is a graded practical on the Mzansi Fresh Meals training case. You score three material groups online, a person marks your work and sends coaching notes, and you get a second attempt. You then download your own completed assessment.
Is it worth it if we already have a vulnerability assessment?
If the assessment was scored once and filed, yes. Module 3 covers residual scoring and how to spot a faked one. Module 5 sets out one assessment for FSSC 22000, BRCGS, SQF, IFS and GFSI, and a working calendar.
Do I need prior knowledge of VACCP?
It is an expert level course, so it helps to know your site’s raw materials and to have seen a vulnerability assessment. If the subject is new to you, the combined introductory Food Fraud and Food Defence course at R1 450 is the gentler start.
Diarise the first scan and verify three certificates this week, starting with the supplier you trust most. One major nonconformity, or one fraudulent lot that reaches your label, costs far more than R1 750 and 8 hours. Enrol in the Food Fraud Coordinator Course on VACCP and the prevention plan and build the rest of the system. The introductory route is on the food fraud and food defence training hub.
ISO 22002-100 is published by ISO. RASFF is operated by the European Commission. This course is an independent training product and is not approved or endorsed by ISO, GFSI, any scheme owner or any certification body.