FprEN 17972

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
01-junij-2023
Pristnost živil - Pristnost živil in goljufije - Načini, izrazi in definicije
Food authenticity - Food authenticity and fraud - Concepts, terms, and definitions
Lebensmittelauthentizität - Lebensmittelauthentizität und -betrug - Konzepte und Begriffe
Authenticité des aliments - Authenticité des aliments et fraude - Concepts, termes et
définitions
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: prEN 17972
ICS:
01.040.67 Živilska tehnologija (Slovarji) Food technology
(Vocabularies)
67.020 Procesi v živilski industriji Processes in the food
industry
oSIST prEN 17972:2023 en,fr,de
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

oSIST prEN 17972:2023
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
DRAFT
EUROPEAN STANDARD
prEN 17972
NORME EUROPÉENNE
EUROPÄISCHE NORM
April 2023
ICS 01.040.67; 65.120; 67.050
English Version
Food authenticity - Food authenticity and fraud - Concepts,
terms, and definitions
Lebensmittelauthentizität - Lebensmittelauthentizität
und -betrug - Konzepte und Begriffe
This draft European Standard is submitted to CEN members for enquiry. It has been drawn up by the Technical Committee
CEN/TC 460.
If this draft becomes a European Standard, CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations
which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration.

This draft European Standard was established by CEN in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other
language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC
Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and
United Kingdom.
Recipients of this draft are invited to submit, with their comments, notification of any relevant patent rights of which they are
aware and to provide supporting documentation.

Warning : This document is not a European Standard. It is distributed for review and comments. It is subject to change without
notice and shall not be referred to as a European Standard.

EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION

EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG

CEN-CENELEC Management Centre: Rue de la Science 23, B-1040 Brussels
© 2023 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. prEN 17972:2023 E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
Contents Page
European foreword . 3
Introduction . 4
1 Scope . 5
2 Normative references . 5
3 Terms and definitions . 5
Bibliography . 13

oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
European foreword
This document (prEN 17972:2023) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 460 “Food
authenticity”, the secretariat of which is held by DIN.
This document is currently submitted to the CEN Enquiry.
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
Introduction
The general dictionary definition of “authenticity” is “the quality of being authentic”, and the relevant
dictionary definitions of “authentic” include “not false or copied; genuine; real” and “having an origin
supported by unquestionable evidence; authenticated; verified”. This document defines various terms
and concepts in relation to authenticity and fraud related to feed and food products, including what
various terms mean and what they entail. The aim of this document is to provide an internally consistent
set of definitions that to a large degree is also in line with other definitions and with common word usage.
The terms and concepts defined here are largely based on the relationship between food product
characteristics and food product claims. Food products have characteristics of various types; these
characteristics are the real and actual properties that the food product in question has. Examples can
include various characteristics related to the origin of the food product, the processes undergone in
making it, the composition of the food product, the presence of additives, the eco-label status, etc. Some
of these characteristics, such as composition or presence of additives, are physically inherent in the food
product, whereas some other characteristics, such as eco-label status or exact origin, are not. Food
products also come with some explicit claims attached, at least if they are sold commercially, when a
certain amount of product information is mandatory. Claims are statements made about the food product;
either explicitly (“this is extra virgin olive oil, and the label says so”) or implicitly (“this food is safe”).
Authenticity when it comes to food products is when there is a match between the actual characteristic
of the food product and the claim made about it. Lack of authenticity can be deliberate, as when someone
intentionally makes a false claim about a food product; then we refer to it as food fraud, and there are
various types of food fraud identified in this document. Lack of authenticity can also be accidental, for
instance when an error in the production process or in the documentation / labelling process has led to
a mismatch between the product characteristic and the claim. Note that the term “claim” in this document
refers to any explicit or implicit statement which implies that a food product has a certain characteristic,
whether the provision of this information is legally required or not.
This document intends to provide a common ground upon which future work regarding the authenticity
and fraud of food products can be based.
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
1 Scope
This document provides technical definitions of terms relating to authenticity and fraud when referring
to food products. All terms and definitions are in the context of food supply chains, but most of them can
also be applied when referring to feed products and the feed supply chain.
2 Normative references
There are no normative references in this document.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp/
— IEC Electropedia: available at https://www.electropedia.org/
The terms and concepts defined in this section have a hierarchical relationship to each other which can
be illustrated as follows in Figure 1:

Figure 1 — Hierarchy of terms and concepts
This hierarchy is reflected in the clauses below by showing the domain to which each term or concept
belongs in angle brackets (< >) before its definition.
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
3.1
process
set of interrelated or interacting activities which transforms inputs to outputs
[SOURCE: EN ISO 22000:2018, definition 3.36]
3.2
product
output that is a result of a process
Note 1 to entry: Products can be raw materials, intermediate/semi processed products, or finished products.
[SOURCE: EN ISO 22000:2018, definition 3.37, modified – Note 1 to entry has been replaced]
3.3
characteristic
distinguishing feature of the product
Note 1 to entry: A product characteristic can be qualitative or quantitative.
Note 2 to entry: A product characteristic can be inherent in the product itself, or it can relate to the conditions
under which the product was produced, or the environment in which it was produced.
Note 3 to entry: A product characteristic is sometimes referred to as a product attribute or a product property.
Note 4 to entry: There are various classes of product characteristics, such as the following:
— product name, type, definition, category (e.g. coffee, beer, extra virgin olive oil);
— physical (e.g. size, weight, shape);
— composition (e.g. moisture, protein, fat, vitamin content, species, specific breed, variety);
— sensory (e.g. related to smell, touch or taste);
— functional (e.g. nutritional quality of a food product);
— related to origin (e.g. geographic origin, identity of primary processor);
— related to production method (e.g. organic, free range);
— related to processing (e.g. quick-frozen, defrosted, irradiated, mildly processed, cooked at low
temperature, location at a given time);
— related to other defined practices (including practices e.g. relating to halal or kosher production or
animal welfare), certification schemes or regulations (e.g. produced according to some specification such
as geographical indication).
This list includes direct (inherent) and indirect (associated) product characteristics.
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
3.4
claim
statement where a product is said or implied to have a certain characteristic
Note 1 to entry: The claim can be explicit, e.g. on the label or in the accompanying documentation.
Note 2 to entry: The claim can be implicit, for example that the food product is produced according to applicable
rules and regulations.
Note 3 to entry: If the product is not safe, it will primarily be dealt with as a food safety issue, not as a food
authenticity issue.
Note 4 to entry: Some jurisdictions use a narrower definition of the term “claim” where the term is applied only to
nutritional claims or health claims. This document has a wider and more general definition of “claim”; both
mandatory information required by law (including the product description) and additional voluntary information
provided by the producer are considered claims, and they are normally explicit claims. The scope of this document
also includes the entire supply chain, which includes business-to-business claims and business-to-consumer claims.
Note 5 to entry: There are claims that are subjective in nature (“contributes to a healthy diet”, “tasty”, “crispy”, etc.);
these are outside the scope of this document.
3.5
authentic
state where there is a match between the food product characteristics and the
corresponding food product claims
3.6
authenticity
quality of being authentic
3.7
authentication
process of verifying the authenticity of the food product
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
3.8
methods for authentication based on analysis of product characteristics
procedures and techniques for analysing food product characteristics to authenticate
claims
Note 1 to entry: Methods for the chemical, physical and sensory characterization of food products are commonly
referred to as analytical methods. Examples of analytical methods, approaches and instruments include:
— DNA-based analyses;
— stable isotope and trace element analyses;
— liquid chromatography (LC);
— gas chromatography (GC);
— nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy;
— vibrational spectroscopy, including near-infrared (NIR) or Raman spectroscopy;
— mass spectrometry;
— microscopy;
— general food chemistry analysis;
— sensory analysis.
Note 2 to entry: These methods have many potential applications; what they all have in common is that they can
perform measurements on the food product in question, and they can analyse some food product characteristics to
evaluate the veracity or likelihood of the claim.
3.9
methods for authentication based on analysis of recorded data
procedures for investigating the veracity, consistency or likelihood of claims, based on
recordings made in the supply chain for the food product in question
Note 1 to entry: These methods largely focus on identifying discrepancies in recorded data; that is, on identifying
sets of claims that are mutually contradictory. These methods depend on explicit claims relating to the food product
in question being available and accessible.
Note 2 to entry: The record-based methods for food product authentication can be applied on aggregate level, e.g.
for countries, regions, or industry sectors, or they can be applied in specific supply chains or companies. When
applied in specific supply chains or companies, the claims are normally extracted from the traceability system.
Note 3 to entry: A common record-based method for food product authentication is material flow analysis / mass-
balance accounting, which is based on the mass balance principle, i.e. that matter is conserved in any system, and
thus input mass is equal to output mass. Another common record-based method for food product authentication is
input–output analysis, where claims relating to transactions between trading partners are examined for
consistency.
oSIST prEN 17972:2023
prEN 17972:2023 (E)
3.10
misdescription
mismatch between the actual food product characteristic and the corresponding
food product claim
Note 1 to entry: Food product misdescription can be deliberate or accidental.
Note 2 to entry: Misdescription on the label of a food product is often referred to as mislabelling, but the term
mislabelling is also used to refer to instances in which the label is not in accordanc
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