Ertuğrul Yılmaz

Unintentional feed safety hazards are being addressed with HACCP plans. However, this kindly perspective no longer works in deliberate actions. In addition to HACCP plans, fraudulent and adulterous dangers, especially by manufacturers and suppliers, should be considered.

Consumers' trust in the food industry and industrial foods has declined with the increase in the adulteration on food in recent years. The problem of trust in the food industry has caused losses also to businesses that do their job properly.

This problem of trust has prompted various platforms and GFSI institution has been established by the Consumer Products Forum (CGF) and certification programs such as GFSI approved BRC, IFS, FSSC 22000 have been formed to increase people's trust in industrial foods.

One of the issues that all three of these certification programs deal with as priority is the risk of deliberate food and feed fraud (imitation and adulteration). According to the GFSI agency, Food

Fraud is a collective term for deliberate substitution, addition or misrepresentation of food, feed, food ingredients and packaging for economic gain. Adulteration is “production of food and feedstuffs, substances and materials in contact with food, in violation of the legislation or permitted features.” Imitation is “imitating food and feed materials and also the substances and materials in contact with food as having the characteristics that they don't really have in terms of their form, composition and quality.”

Unintentional feed safety hazards are being addressed with HACCP plans. However, this kindly perspective no longer works in deliberate actions. In addition to HACCP plans, fraudulent and adulterous dangers, especially by manufacturers and suppliers, should be considered.

First, a feed fraud vulnerability assessment should be carried out covering raw materials purchased and suppliers. The organization's feed fraud reduction plan should be supported by its feed safety management system.

A risk assessment can be made for each feed raw material using the following food fraud vulnerability assessment method.

Scoring is done using the method given for each vulnerability criterion and the risk value is calculated by multiplying the scores given. According to the calculated risk value score, action planning is made based on the table below.

Launching feed ingredients with high mycotoxins content: Mycotoxins are toxic metabolites synthesized by molds such as Aspergillus, Penicillium and Fusarium. Many mycotoxins are found as natural contaminants in feed and feed ingredients. The main mycotoxins that pose a risk in dairy cattle are aflatoxins, deoxynvalenol (DON), T-2 toxin, zearalenone, fumonisin and ochratoxin A.

Aflatoxins, T-2 toxin, deoxynvalenol, zearalenone and ochratoxin A pass into the milk and cause economic losses. (F. Şahin Dokuyucu, 2011). Many mycotoxins are classified as certain or potential carcinogens by the International Cancer Research Center (IARC). (Kuiper-Goodman, 2004).

In developed countries, DON occurs as a problem before harvesting, as grains are kept at a moisture content below 13%. (Yazar and Omurtag, 2008).

Fusarium species, which can produce trichothecene, develop well in cold and humid conditions, causing “cob rot” in corn and “ear blight” in small grain cereals.

ZEA is a low toxicity but estrogenic mycotoxin (Morgavi and Riley, 2007). For this reason, ovarian cysts due to ZEA are very common in cows. Fumonicins have become increasingly important due to their cancer-promoting and/or propelling effects.

(Sanchis and Magan, 2004). Unfortunately, we witness that corn, which has very high dust content, glassy and flour layers are not at the desired percentage, is very high in moisture, has reached the end of the season and has been stocked for a long time, is not in the desired color scale, is sold at very low prices in the market.

The control of mycotoxins must be controlled at different stages in each stage, for example before harvest, after harvest, silo management in feed plants, before they are turned into feed and presented to animal consumption and to human consumption.

Addition of ammonium salt to feed ingredients: In the evaluation of feed proteins in ruminants and determining the protein needs of animals, crude protein or digestible crude protein system had been used for many years in Turkey.

Although these two concepts used in animal nutrition can be used for cattle with a certain level of productivity, they are insufficient to meet the needs of culture cattle breeds with high milk yield at an optimum level.

In other words, the fact that the ration is rich only in total nitrogen compounds is insufficient in explaining the optimum needs. Therefore, it has been reported that the degradability of the crude protein content in the rumen, in other words, rumen-degraded protein (RDP) and the rumen-undegraded protein (RUP) fractions of the rumen should be taken as basis in the definition of the protein values of the feed or ration.

(AFRC, 1987; Chamberlain and Wilkinson, 1996; Cömert and Șayan, 2000; McDonald et al., 2002; Fox et al., 2004). Ammonium salts can be added to protein sources, especially soybean meal and sunflower seed meal, to ensure some increase in the amount of crude protein.

Crude protein ratios can be increased by adding ammonium salts to many ingredients, not just protein sources. Normally, soybean meal is rich in lysine, methionine and threonine.

Non-protein nitrogen (NPN) isn't actually protein, it is just simple nitrogen. For this reason, protein fractions should be added to the compound feed label information.

If RUP, RDP and NPN information and rates are written in label information, unfair competition can be prevented in compound feed production.

Even amino acid profiles of compound feeds should be written in the label information. Otherwise, in dairy cattle fertility will continue to decrease, the number of inseminations per cow will increase and the cows' culling rate will increase. This will put the farms in difficult economic situations.

Launching GMO feed ingredients as if non-GMO: In order to ensure inspection and traceability of GMO feeds that are allowed to be imported in accordance with the Biosafety Law and Biosafety Board decisions, necessary inspections are carried out within the country during its movement, processing and storage.

All interested parties who import, process and use GMO feeds are obliged to notify the Ministry at the entrance and movement of the products, keep the necessary records up to date and submit them to the Ministry when necessary.

Soybean and maize varieties approved by the Biosafety Board as feed should comprise on the label if they contain more than 0.9% GMO. According to the statement made by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), it has been stated in many researches on animals that no GMO DNA or proteins are found in the tissues, fluids and products of animals fed with GMO feeds. (Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry).

However, since GMO containing soy and corn derivatives are not available in our country in high quantity, the needs of the feed industry are met through imports.

Since these ingredients are foreign currency-based and the number of genes accepted in our country is less than that of the European Union countries and the USA, there is an increase in the prices of ingredients from time to time.

The deterioration in the supply and demand balance during the times of the GMO crisis increases the price and the risk of placing GMO products on the market as if they do not contain GMOs.

Misrepresentation of dark and light DDGS compositions to the manufacturer: They reported that the nutritional composition of dark and light DDGSs was significantly different and that generally the crude protein and amino acid content of DDGS was 3 times higher than that of the corn kernel.

This is due to the presence of bacterial crude protein after fermentation during the use of kernels in the production of beer or ethanol.

They reported that the lysine level of DDGS is 0.85% and digestibility varied around 75-89% (Dale and Batal, 2003). These values belong to DDGS samples containing approximately 27% crude protein.

However, Fiene et al. (2006) reported that the average digestibility of lysine in DDGS varies around 56.9-72.2% and that this difference is related to the process used during the production of the material. They differ in both amino acid profiles and digestible protein.

Misrepresentation of oil compositions to be used in feed: Considering the Official Statement on Oils to be Used in Feed;

Vegetable oils: They are oils obtained from oil seeds and fruits. Acid oils: These are the oils obtained as a result of reacting soapstock, which is a by-product of the refining process of crude oils, with sulfuric acid.

Preserved (bypass) oils: These are stable (inert) oils obtained by fatty acids forming salt with calcium (Ca) or different physical and chemical processes from crude oils.

The moisture rates, sediment ratios, unsaponifiable matters, the number of iodine and limits of peroxide values of the oils, that have been defined like this in the Official Statement, have been specified in the table titled Quality criteria of the feed oils in Annex-1.

Unlike other ingredients, oil cannot be analyzed easily. The price of safflower oil in the market is far lower than sunflower oil, but if they are mixed together, it is very difficult to differentiate, so the feed oil sector has to take urgent measures in this direction. Unfortunately, the fatty acid compositions of these two oil types are very alike.

Launching live yeast with low thermostability: Live-cell yeast products consist of active dry live yeast, blended with a diluent to contain a specified number of live yeast cells.

Since live-cell yeast products are produced with active dry yeast and marketed as live yeast cell source in the market, whether pelleting harms their activities is a significant question for producers and nutritionists who use them in pelleted products.

The normal pelletizing process uses steam to ensure the proper clench in the pellet dies in order to form the feed. Humid heat inhibits life processes by denaturing the enzyme systems in the organism and destroying the activities of enzymes (Trouw Nutrition, Yeast culture).

Even live yeasts that are thermostable at the pellet temperature may lose their viability at least at 102 level.

Based on the information we have obtained in line with the literature review, a case study has been prepared on the table titled “Feed Fraud Vulnerability Assessment and Prevention Plan in Compound Feed Production”.