Profit margins comparable to those of the drug trade: Food counterfeiting and adulteration are so lucrative, the global supply chains so confusing and the counterfeiters so sophisticated that despite international controls and cooperation, food fraud has not yet been brought under control.
In garages and laboratories, people mix, dilute and color. The forgeries are so refined that their authenticity can often only be verified by scientific testing.
Food Fraud gangs make billions in sales with their most popular counterfeit item—olive oil. Relabelling conventional as organic food or ‘renaming’ fish species is also extremely lucrative. According to scientists at the German Senckenberg Research Institute, every tenth fish does not match the name on its label.

The Still Life Food Fraud Photography series ‹Faux gras› explores typical methods and ‘ingredients’ of various counterfeit foods that have appeared on the European market in this composition in recent years.

Each still life photograph focuses on its respective ingredients in a sterile, clean visual language. The images play with the contemporary image we have of food photography, scientific photography and contemporary still life, and how food adulteration and food fraud not only bring non-food ingredients on our plates without our knowledge, but also how this poses a threat to our health.