What if your company is unknowingly stuck in denial about food fraud? Are you feeling stuck when addressing food fraud from a food safety perspective in your company? You are not alone. Many organizations go through a psychological transformation—similar to the grief cycle—before real change happens. Begin your assessment today.
Over the nearly twenty years of working in food fraud prevention, we’ve observed a consistent and surprising trend: companies often experience the same stages of emotional response when confronting food fraud as individuals do when facing grief. That’s right – grief. The Kübler-Ross model, originally developed to explain how people process loss, is uncannily applicable to the business journey through food fraud prevention.
[Note: The grief cycle, also known as the Kübler-Ross model, describes five stages that people may go through when experiencing grief or loss. It was introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying.” The Five Stages of Grief are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance.]
Again and again, we observed a pattern: When first introduced to food fraud prevention, companies didn’t just need new checklists or more testing. They needed a new mindset. That mental journey mirrors the Kübler-Ross grief cycle—the five stages we usually associate with personal loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Why the grief cycle? Because food fraud leads a company to realize their current food quality and safety systems might not be enough. That their trusted suppliers, or even their own processes, might be vulnerable. It’s not just a technical gap—it’s a shift in worldview.
Denial: “Our systems are already fine.”
When companies first hear about food fraud—defined as “intentional deception for economic gain using food”—the instinctive reaction is often disbelief. “That’s not a problem here.” “We’ve never had an issue.” This is classic denial. The systems already in place seem sufficient, so why fix what doesn’t appear broken?
This is NOT ignorance. It’s a natural reaction to something new and unfamiliar. Just like in grief, the first response isn’t action but resistance. Many executives believe that food fraud is a rare outlier rather than a systemic threat. This resistance is understandable. Food fraud feels new, and confronting it feels like admitting failure. But it isn’t a failure. It’s the beginning of growth.
Anger: “How could someone do this?”
Once denial fades, anger often follows. “How could someone do this?” or “Why didn’t someone warn us?” In this phase, there’s a shift in focus from internal systems to external blame. The sense of betrayal—by suppliers, standards, regulatory oversight, or even their own assumptions—can be intense.
It’s crucial here to steer the conversation toward the human adversary aspect of food fraud. Unlike microbiological threats, which follow natural patterns, food fraud incidents are orchestrated by intelligent human adversaries. It’s intentional. And for intentional acts, the appropriate tools are not scientific assays but Social Science and Criminology. Anger can be productive, but it must be channeled into action. The key is moving forward without falling into blame or defensiveness.
But food fraud is not about blame. It’s about risk. And the reality is that this is a new problem. The old methods don’t apply. Just like fighting bacteria requires microbiology, addressing food fraud and the human adversary involves the application of criminology and social science.
Bargaining: “But we didn’t do anything wrong.”
This stage is subtle. Companies have started to address food fraud incidents but frame them as a one-time issue or say they’re the victim. The logic goes: “If we can just explain this or isolate it, maybe we don’t have to change everything.” Traditional food safety systems like HACCP were not designed with adversarial thinking in mind. They need augmentation—not blame.
It’s here that some companies have been efficiently hyper-focusing on a handful of high-risk ingredients. They conduct exhaustive reviews of five or ten products—but with thousands of inputs in the supply chain, the gap becomes apparent.
Depression: “We’ve done so much, and it’s not enough.”
When applied to food fraud prevention, this is the moment of realization. After investing years in intense reviews, companies often confront a sobering truth: the work has thoroughly addressed those key products but barely scratched the surface. It may have taken eight years to assess 10% of their ingredients. Does that mean another ten years to complete the job?
This feeling of being overwhelmed is not a failure. It’s an honest assessment of the scale of the challenge. But the good news? Depression in the grief model isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of resolution, and for food fraud prevention, it is realizing the need to shift to an enterprise-wide vulnerability assessment.
Acceptance: “We need to do something different.”
Since early 2025, more and more companies are entering this acceptance stage. They recognize the scope of the threat and the limits of their current tools. More importantly, they understand the need for a scalable path forward. This is where our Food Fraud Prevention training comes in -both online and in-person. Companies are no longer asking if they should act but how to act.
They’re embracing enterprise-wide assessments. These don’t need to be perfect or even quantitative. A quick qualitative “initial screening”—like a heat map in COSO-based Enterprise Risk Management for Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance—can serve as an invaluable “pre-filter” to prioritize actions and allocate resources smartly.
From Grief to Growth
This process can’t be rushed. Like personal grief, each company moves through the stages in their own time. But the journey is real. And it leads somewhere better.
You don’t need to overhaul your systems overnight. You just need to start. Use a qualitative “pre-filter” or an “initial screening” to get a quick read on your risk. That alone can provide clarity and confidence.
A good way to guide your psychological transformation from a focus on testing and risk to focusing on system weaknesses and vulnerability is to review the foundational concepts. One way to do that is to get an educational refresher. It is also helpful to get guidance on the over-arching systems, or an “initial screening” for all your products. For example, our free online, on-demand massive open online courses include the Food Fraud Initial Screening concept (FFIS) in the VACCP MOOC.
LINK: Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment & Prevention Strategy (VACCP) MOOC: https://foodfraudpreventionthinktank.com/food-fraud-prevention-academy/
Key Takeaways
- The progression of a food fraud prevention strategy often mirrors the grief cycle—companies move from denial to acceptance in a human, emotional journey.
- Food fraud prevention is a new issue; nobody failed—but old tools can’t solve new and evolving problems.
- A quick, qualitative assessment “initial screening” is a great way to start and can guide companywide prevention (See our food fraud initial screening tool – FFIS. This is presented in the VACCP MOOC).
Reference:
- Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying. New York: Macmillan, URL: https://www.ekrfoundation.org/5-stages-of-grief/on-death-and-dying/
- Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment & Prevention Strategy (VACCP) MOOC, URL: https://foodfraudpreventionthinktank.com/food-fraud-prevention-academy/
- Spink, John, Moyer, Douglas C, & Speier-Pero, Cheri (2016). Introducing the Food Fraud Initial Screening Model (FFIS), Food Control, Volume 69, November 2016, Pages 306-314. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713516301219
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