Alitheon tackles mislabeling and food fraud with patented AI technology

28 May 2024 --- According to figures from the US Food and Drug Administration, food fraud affects at least 1% of the global food industry and can cost as much as US$40 billion a year. Fraudsters easily and often target traditional packaging identifiers such as expiration dates and batch numbers. Ultimately, this kind of package fraud can undermine trust in product quality and jeopardize consumer safety.

We speak with Roei Ganzarski, CEO of Alitheon, a US-based software company that has developed patented AI technology designed to combat product fraud.

According to Ganzarski, the company’s technology provides “an irrefutable means to track and trace products through the supply chain,” adding a critical safeguard to the F&B industries

“We define AI as ‘augmented intelligence,’ meaning we harness the tools and capabilities to help a human being make decisions that otherwise they couldn’t, such as identifying a fake or fraudulent can or bottle of drink versus a real one,” he tells Food Ingredients First. “We, as humans, cannot do that using solely our own judgment, which is why it’s so easy to fake food items. So, our AI helps people make decisions that otherwise they couldn’t do.”

Patented technology 
Alitheon has patented its AI technology to digitally “fingerprint” goods. Ganzarski flags this move as “highly beneficial for food ingredient manufacturers, as well as packaging companies.” 

Roei Ganzarski, CEO of Alitheon.Consumers are looking to buy products that are deemed more transparent, he underscores. “They want to know that when they buy a packet of chips or a bottle of beer, for instance, is where it claims to come from, and they want to know that what they’re told about it is, in fact, true.”

“Our technology allows people to check that the date of packaging is correct, the date of expiration is correct, and the products’ claims are correct,” he says. 

Using smartphones, consumers can see the traceability claims that a company or brand is using.

“For example, I might be able to see that a piece of lamb went from the farm in Australia to a ship to Los Angeles, and then from there to a truck and to the supermarket it was bought from.” 

This is the level of information that nowadays consumers are expecting, flags Ganzarski, adding that whatever is on a label should always be correct, although sometimes, perhaps too often, sadly, it isn’t.

Fraud and counterfeits 
A vast majority of food labels are printed on stickers and tags and according to Ganzarski, it’s “very easy” for anyone to fraudulently print a food label. 

“Today, this is one of our industry’s biggest challenges, and stickers and tags are limited in the transparency of information that can be achieved.”

For food fraudsters, it’s very simple to replace an old sticker with a “new” one or take some alcohol and rub off an expiration date and print a new one. The internet can also allow you to buy “fake” stickers or holograms that look like the real thing. “These fraudsters will target food products because it is easy to manipulate and print a fake food label.”

“A lot of the time, consumers are too trusting and won’t even question a label or sticker,” notes Ganzarski. 

With Alitheon’s AI technology, Ganzarski’s goal was to “enable people to be able to do what we allow them to do in a simple fashion using phone cameras.”

“We’ve reached a point where mobile phone cameras are good enough and accessible and cheap enough to enable access to our algorithms that allow us to do what we do, in this case, identify food products and labels without using machine learning.”

Protecting future fraud
Commenting on how this technology can support food ingredient and packaging companies in the future, Ganzarski believes Alitheon’s “technology can solve issues around provenance, traceability and transparency.”

“AI allows consumers to pull out their cell phones and take a picture of food packaging, and the correct data, manufacturer origin and expiry dates can all show up. If the information doesn’t match what’s in the box or on the packet, then they know not to buy it.”Alitheon has developed patented AI technology designed to combat label fraud, using smartphones.

“While we may not be able to eliminate fraud entirely within the F&B industry, this should definitely reduce it because anything that is FeaturePrinted is protected.”

Ganzarski warns that fraudsters won’t be able to cheat the system, further highlighting the importance of not relying on labels in supply chains.

He also envisions the future of harnessing AI in the food and beverage arena. “I believe AI will be ultra-successful and that every package of food out there will be FeaturePrinted by increased use of optical-AI. I expect that consumers will drive this change as they get more and more educated on food fraud and AI.”

“There’s a tremendous future ahead for optical AI in food and beverage because people are starting to demand answers around what they are consuming and giving to their families,” he concludes. 

You can watch a video interview with Ganzarski here.  

By Elizabeth Green