International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD)

Volume 4 Issue 6, September-October 2020 Available Online: www.ijtsrd.com e-ISSN: 2456 – 6470

Food Defense: An Introduction

Matthew N. O. Sadiku1, Sunday S. Adekunte2, Sarhan M. Musa1
1Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas
2Community High School, Agada, Ogun State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT How to cite this paper: Matthew N. O.

Food defense is the process of protecting food products from intentional Sadiku | Sunday S. Adekunte | Sarhan M.
contamination or adulteration, which aims to harm consumers, business Musa "Food Defense: An Introduction"
establishments, or the public health. It refers to a system in place to prevent, Published in
protect, respond to and recover from the intentional introduction of International Journal
contaminants into our nation’s food supply. Food defense is to everyone’s of Trend in Scientific
benefit. It must be supported by the public sector if the appropriate level of Research and
protection is to be provided. This paper provides an introduction to food Development
defense. (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-
6470, Volume-4 | IJTSRD33364
KEYWORDS: food defense, food quality, food fraud, food safety, food security Issue-6, October
2020, pp.275-278, URL:
www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd33364.pdf

Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and

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INTRODUCTION
Food is any substance or product intended to be ingested by produced, by people outside an operation, by disgruntled
humans. Like water and air, food is necessary to sustain life. workers, or by shady business practices. Criminals may be
The food system in the United States continues to increase in motivated by personal revenge or financial gain. Figure 1
complexity, diversity, and reliance on interconnected shows the spectrum of food contamination [1].
domestic and global systems. This caused the federal
government in the early 2000s to declare the food and CONCEPT OF FOOD DEFENSE
agriculture sector as one of 17 critical national infrastructure Food defense is the effort made towards protecting food
open to intentional attack. These infrastructures are food from acts of intentional adulteration by biological, chemical,
and agriculture, defense industrial base, energy, public physical, or radiological agents introduced for the purpose of
health and healthcare, national monuments and icons, causing public health harm. It is closely related to food
banking and finance, water, chemical, commercial facilities, counterterrorism. It is crucial in proactively implementing
dams, emergency services, commercial nuclear reactors, programs that help avoid food safety incidents, costly recalls,
materials and waste, information technology, and disruptions in food production. Food defense consists of
communications, postal and shipping, transportation a set of measures, strategies, procedures, and policies to
systems, government facilities, and critical manufacturing. prevent intentional adulteration of foods throughout the
Terrorist attacks on critical infrastructures can cause supply chain. The notion of “food defense” started in the
problems to a national stability. Attack on the food and aftermath of 9-11-2001 and was initiated by US government
agriculture sector could have far-reaching consequences on agencies. Shortly after the 9/11 the U.S. government became
the economy, human health, and consumer confidence. concerned that terrorist organizations might seek to
contaminate the food supply.
Food defense is essentially protecting the food supply from
intentional harm or contamination intended to cause public Food defense is closely related food quality, food fraud, food
harm or economic disruption. A food is considered safety, and food security, as shown in Figure 2 [1]. Food
contaminated if it contains poisonous or deleterious defense is an essential element of an inseparable trio of
substance. Contamination can occur at any point in the responsibilities (food quality, safety, and defense). Food
supply chain. Globalization has increased the number of protection is the umbrella term embracing both food defense
points where contamination may occur. The food products and food safety. Food defense may be regarded as the last
that are most likely to be intentionally contaminated include piece in an integrated food protection jigsaw and it
meat, produce, dairy, and seafood. Intentional contamination complements the food quality and food safety components
may be caused by groups dissatisfied with how our food is [3].

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
 Food Defense: The protection of food products from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and
intentional contamination or adulteration intended to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to encompass
cause public health harm or economic disruption. Food activities associated with protecting the nation’s food supply
defense programs are intended to prevent acts by from deliberate acts of contamination. Figure 3 illustrates
individuals who intentionally introduce contaminants the evolution of US Food Defense Policy [6].
into food products and cause harm to the company or to
the consumer. The Food and Drug Administration focuses on mitigation
 Food Safety: Food safety addresses the accidental strategies to protect food against intentional adulteration.
contamination of food products during storage and The FSIF provides an ongoing effort to help protect the
transportation. Food safety programs have focused on nation's supply of meat, poultry, and egg products from
preventing unintentional contamination from metal, intentional contamination. Proactive and reactive food
plastic, pathogens (such as viruses, bacteria, parasites), defense practices can help prevent malicious attacks on the
pesticides, or sanitizing agents entering the food supply. food chain, food fraud, food crime, food safety, food
 Food Security: This is the reliable availability of a contamination, food tampering, food crime, and food
sufficient quantity and quality of nutritious food for a terrorism.
population. Food security occurs when all people, at all
times, have both physical and economic access to The FDA and USDA adapted a tool called CARVER, originally
sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. used for military purposes, for vulnerability assessment in
 Food Fraud: This involves fraudulent practices with an the food sector. CARVER is an acronym for the following six
intent to deceive. Food fraud can be classified as attributes used to evaluate the attractiveness of a target for
substitution, artificial enhancement, addition, an attack [7]:
tampering, and dilution. It also includes the false or  Criticality—refers to the impact of an attack on public
misleading statements made about a product for health and the economy.
economic gain. While food fraud is economically  Accessibility—refers to the ability to physically access
motivated, food defense is ideologically motivated by and egress from the target.
individuals or organizations.  Recuperability—refers to the ability of a system to
 Food Quality: This refers to characteristics of food that recover from an attack.
are acceptable to consumers. It is the attribute that  Vulnerability—refers to the ease of accomplishing an
influences a product's value to consumers. It is an attack.
essential food manufacturing requirement.  Effect—refers to the amount of direct loss from an
attack as measured by loss in production.
The food industry most commonly integrates a food defense  Recognizability—refers to the ease of identifying a
into an existing food safety system of the company. It mainly target.
focusses on food safety agents rather than food defense
agents. The food industry implements food defense mainly in FOOD DEFENSE PLAN
agricultural production, processing, storage and transport, A food defense plan is a proactive, strategic approach to
wholesale and retail distribution. Therefore, it is important protect the entire food supply chain from an intentional
that food defense practices complement food safety deliberate contamination. All food company are encouraged
practices. It is cheaper to prevent an incident from occurring to develop and operate with a food defense plan. A food
than dealing with the aftermath of a food borne disease defense plan is a document that sets out control measures
outbreak. developed by an establishment to prevent intentional
adulteration of food product. It is also a practical guide used
GOVERNMENT EFFORT TO PREVENT ADULTERATION to keep food products safe from threats of intentional
The public holds government and the food industry contamination. It is tool used by quality managers to help
responsible for protecting the food supply from prevent the intentional contamination of food products. The
contamination and preventing food defense events [4]. There plan should be developed, documented, implemented, tested,
are several stakeholders involved in food defense [5]. At the assessed, and maintained. Each facility should be required to
international level, we have Food and Agriculture prepare and implement a written food defense plan, which
Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), and would include the actionable process steps, focused
World Trade Organization (WTO). Within the United States, mitigation strategies, monitoring, corrective actions,
we have Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States verification, training, and recordkeeping. An organization
Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food Safety and should be able to assess, prevent, and respond proactively to
Inspection Service (FSIS), Centers for Disease Control and a potential attack on the food chain. A good plan should be
Prevention (CDC), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), easy to understand and use, practical, implementable, and
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Food Protection flexible. It must be science-based, making it compatible with
and Defense Institute (FPDI), Food Protection and Defense a risk analysis framework. It should be comprehensive
Institute (FPDI), and Department of State. including suppliers, contractors, manufacturing employees,
transporters, distributors, and all partners along the food
The food industry needs the support of governments at all supply chain [8].
levels in order to implement realistic and workable food
defense programs. The laws and government expectations CONCLUSION
regarding food defense vary from country to country. Food defense is the effort to protect food from intentional
Various food defense tools and resources that have been acts of adulteration where there is an intent to cause public
developed by US government. Food defense is a collective health harm and economic disruption. State agencies must
term used by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), do everything in their power to prevent attacks on the food

@ IJTSRD | Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD33364 | Volume – 4 | Issue – 6 | September-October 2020 Page 276
 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
supply chain. Just like other areas of critical infrastructure, [4] “Fooddefense:protecting thefoodsupplyfromintentionalharm,”
the food industry is on the front line of new war. Food https://extension2.missouri.edu/mp914
defense is relatively new in Europe and several other nations
[5] “Food defense,” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and the awareness of the food defense is not the same in all
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_defense
nations. Therefore, it is necessary to work on raising
awareness on food defense. To increase awareness of food [6] “Welcome to the Interactive Food Defense Workshop
dense, some institutions have begun to incorporate food with Government & Industry Representatives at the
dense in their undergraduate curricula. More information 2012 Food Safety Summit,” Unknown Source
about food defense can be found in the books in [9,10] and
[7] N. P. Bogadi, M. Banovic, and I. Babic, “Food defence
the following related journal: British Food Journal.
system in food industry: perspective of the EU
countries,” Journal of Consumer Protection and Food
REFERENCES
Safety, March 2016.
[1] “Welcome to the Interactive Food Defense Workshop
with Government & Industry Representatives at the [8] C. Yoe et al., “The value of the food defense plan,” Food
2012 Food Safety Summit,” Unknown Source. Safety Magazine, April/May 2008.
[2] Y. W. Huang, “Food safety, food defense, and food [9] M. Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.
fraud,”file:///C:/Users/12818/Downloads/pta_23020_ Penguin Books, 2009.
8298974_33227%20(1).pdf
[10] M. Pollan, In Defence of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and
[3] R. K. Davidson et al., “From food defence to food supply the Pleasures of Eating by Michael Pollan (2009-05-01).
chain integrity," British Food Journal, vol. 119, no. 1, Penguin Books, 2009.
2017, pp. 52 – 66.

Figure 1 The spectrum of food contamination [1].

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470

Figure 2 The interconnection of food safety, food quality, food defense, and food fraud [2].

Figure 3 Evolution of US food defense policy [6].

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