With food fraud now costing the industry an estimated $30-$40 billion a year and reported incidents up more than tenfold since 2020, Cerfinity brings unit-level, tap-to-verify authenticity to premium food producers.

NEWTON, NJ / ACCESS Newswire / August 6, 2026 / Some of the world’s most trusted foods are also its most faked. From the extra-virgin olive oil on the shelf to the wild salmon on the menu, a growing share of premium food is diluted, substituted, or mislabeled before it reaches the consumer – and honest producers pay the price in lost sales and eroded trust. Cerfinity, a Digital Provenance Technology™ company, today released its ranking of the ten most counterfeited foods and announced an authentication platform that lets producers prove the authenticity of a single package – not just a batch – with a tap of a smartphone.

Food fraud – the intentional substitution, dilution, or mislabeling of food for economic gain – is estimated to cost the global industry between $30 billion and $40 billion each year, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a 2025 European Commission Joint Research Centre analysis. The problem is accelerating: independent analysis found reported food-fraud incidents rose more than 1,000% between 2020 and 2023.

The 10 Most Counterfeited Foods

Cerfinity compiled the ranking below from published food-authenticity research, including studies by Oceana, the UC Davis Olive Center, the Unique Mānuka Factor Honey Association, and the FDA. The most-faked foods share a common profile: a high price per unit, no way for a shopper to verify authenticity by sight, and a supply chain long enough for a cheaper substitute to slip in unnoticed.

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Food

How it’s faked

Documented scale

1

Olive oil

Extra-virgin cut with cheaper oils; false origin and grade claims

UC Davis found 69% of imported “extra-virgin” oils failed the standard

2

Milk & dairy

Water dilution; palm oil for milkfat; cheese filler or substitution

Named the most-adulterated food overall; 78% of Russian cheese reportedly fake (2015)

3

Honey

Diluted with rice, corn or beet syrup; false origin; synthetic potency

Up to 76% of store “honey” samples had no pollen; ~6 of 7 “Mānuka” jars can’t be genuine

4

Seafood

Cheaper species sold as premium fish

Oceana: 1 in 5 fish mislabeled; sea bass 55%, snapper 42%

5

Spices

Bulked with fillers and dyes; saffron cut with safflower

Saffron – the priciest spice by weight – is a perennial fraud target

6

Coffee

Ground coffee bulked with husks, twigs, corn or soy; false single-origin

Among the most-forged ingredients in global authenticity surveys

7

Spirits & wine

Refilled premium bottles; counterfeit labels; illicit distillation

World Spirits Alliance: ~$9 billion in fiscal revenue lost yearly

8

Vanilla

Synthetic vanillin sold as pure; extract diluted

Short harvest against year-round demand makes it structurally fraud-prone

9

Maple syrup

Cut with cane or corn syrup

A recurring FDA economically-motivated-adulteration target, like honey

10

Wagyu, truffle & caviar

Cheaper breed or species sold as premium; synthetic truffle aroma; farmed-as-wild

Classic high-value profile: high price, no visual verification

Figures are drawn from publicly reported industry and academic sources and reflect estimates of a deliberately concealed activity; ranges vary by study and region.

Why Certification Alone Doesn’t Stop It

Many premium foods already carry certification – a grade, a geographic mark, a license number printed on the label. But a printed label is the one thing a counterfeiter can copy. Certification can confirm that a batch was authentic in the lab; it cannot confirm that the individual package in a shopper’s hand contains that batch, or that no one has opened and refilled it since. That final gap – from a certified batch to a trusted package at the point of sale – is where fraud lives.

How Cerfinity Helps Producers

Cerfinity’s Digital Provenance Technology™ platform makes authenticity a property of the individual package. It combines three elements into a single tap-to-verify experience:

  • A tamper-evident provenance seal on each package that proves it is genuine and records if the seal is ever broken.

  • A permanent provenance registry binding that specific package to its producer, batch, and certification, with a full chain of custody.

  • A tap-to-verify moment – the consumer taps the seal with any smartphone, no app required, and instantly sees the product’s origin, its certification, and an opening certificate confirming the seal is intact.

For producers, existing certification stops being a line of text a counterfeiter can copy and becomes a per-package, consumer-facing proof only the producer can issue. Cerfinity verifies authenticity, origin, and tamper status – it does not test, grade, or make health claims about a product, and is designed to complement existing certification programs rather than replace them.

“The honest producer and the counterfeiter put the same words on the label – that’s the whole problem. We let the real producer put something on the package the faker can’t: a seal you tap to prove this exact jar, this exact bottle, is the genuine article and hasn’t been touched. It turns the authenticity they’ve already earned into something a customer can check for themselves in two seconds.”

– Stuart Fine, Founder & CEO, Cerfinity

The platform is built to deploy without disrupting a producer’s operation: batches are registered through a simple dashboard, seals are shipped to the producer, and applying them fits an existing packaging line. Cerfinity is currently onboarding pilot producers across premium food categories including honey, spirits, and specialty meats.

About Cerfinity

Cerfinity is a Digital Provenance Technology™ company that helps producers of premium goods prove authenticity at the level of the individual item. Its platform pairs a tamper-evident provenance seal with a permanent provenance registry, giving consumers a simple tap-to-verify confirmation of a product’s origin, certification, and chain of custody. Cerfinity serves premium categories including food and beverage, spirits, and collectibles. Learn more at cerfinity.com. Industry whitepapers can be found here.

Media and Investor Contact:
Stuart Fine
CEO
stuart@cerfinity.com

SOURCE: Remergify, Inc.

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Remergify, Inc.