iComplai Predicts Rising Food Fraud & Safety Risks in Hazelnuts Months Before Peak Alerts
Early indicators signalled growing pressure on the global hazelnut supply chain
In February 2025, iComplai’s predictive models began detecting elevated fraud-related signals for hazelnuts. These early alerts coincided with reports of poor harvest yields in Turkey, the largest producer globally. Historically, when the main origin enters a shortage cycle, economic pressure across the supply chain increases, creating incentives to substitute or blend lower-grade materials.
iComplai flagged this shift early, allowing risk and quality teams to monitor developments before wider notification activity emerged.
Signals intensified throughout the year
By September 2025, the alerts persisted. iComplai’s continuous monitoring of regulatory, scientific, and media data showed a steady rise in notifications related to hazelnuts, indicating that the supply imbalance had not eased.
Shortage-driven cycles like this typically produce a dual risk:
increased food fraud vulnerability, and
increased contamination likelihood due to the use of lower-quality stock.
The hazelnut market in 2025 followed this pattern closely.
Mycotoxin notifications surged as predicted
In October 2025, a sharp escalation in safety alerts confirmed the risk trajectory. iComplai recorded a 274% increase in monthly mycotoxin notifications for hazelnuts. This is a recognised consequence of incorporating nuts that would normally fail quality thresholds—those more prone to mould, moisture damage, or substandard storage.
The platform predicted this development months earlier, based on supply pressure indicators and historical contamination patterns.
Notifications for mycotoxins in hazelnuts
The risk is not limited to Turkish hazelnuts
Although the initial disruption originated in Turkey, the associated fraud and mycotoxin risks extended across multiple origins. This is due to several dynamics observed in global commodity shortages:
Blending across origins: When the main origin experiences a shortfall, processors often compensate by mixing nuts from various sources. Lower-grade lots from different countries enter supply chains more easily.
Complex re-routing and repackaging: Products may be exported, repacked, and re-exported, obscuring their true origin and increasing the likelihood of mixed-origin shipments.
Quality degradation across markets: Mycotoxin formation depends on handling and storage conditions, not geography. When demand exceeds the supply of top-grade material, borderline or older stock from any origin is more likely to be used.
Global price pressure: Rising prices incentivise economically motivated adulteration in all producing regions, not only the primary one experiencing the harvest loss.
For these reasons, risk exposure in 2025 was global, not origin-specific.
Outcome: Early visibility enabled preventive action
Thanks to early warnings, companies using iComplai were able to identify escalating fraud and contamination risks months before they became evident in public data. This allowed teams to:
strengthen supplier verification,
deploy targeted testing,
adapt sourcing strategies, and
implement preventive measures ahead of the contamination peak.
The hazelnut case demonstrates how iComplai’s predictive models make emerging risks visible early—supporting more confident and proactive decision-making across the supply chain.