Meeting Summary: IAFP Food Fraud Prevention PDG

Nearly ten years after we founded the IAFP Food Fraud Prevention Professional Development Group, it continues to shape how our industry defines and defends against food fraud. Here is a look inside this year’s meeting, and an invitation to join the conversation.

PDG Group Picture

The Food Fraud Prevention PDG is an increasingly active group – both within the PDG itself and in our regular work activities – and many of its members have been my colleagues for years and years.

History of the Food Fraud PDG

I attended the first meeting that formed the IAFP Food Fraud Prevention Professional Development Group (PDG) in 2017, and 2026 marked nearly a decade of continuous activity. Neil Bogart was elected our first Chair, with Steven Sklare serving as Vice Chair. Leadership passed to Karen Everstine and Clare Menezes for 2019–2020, then to me and Steve Gendel for 2021–2022, and I continued as Chair in 2023. In 2024, Angela Anandappa was elected Chair, with Katie Zammit elected as Vice Chair. More on our history and current leadership is available on the IAFP website.

This Year’s Breakout Discussions and What’s Ahead

The working session was conducted in four breakout topics.

• Artificial Intelligence: The first addressed the impact of artificial intelligence, which is evolving in parallel for both prevention professionals and the fraudsters we are working to counter. Discussion centered on how AI can strengthen document and traceability checks, while also lowering the barrier for fraudsters to fabricate convincing records.
• GFSI & Thorough Audits: The second focused on GFSI and audit programs and how holding the broader system accountable depends on increased training. Participants pointed to auditor training and more consistent scoring criteria as the areas most likely to close remaining gaps in audit rigor.
• Risk Treatment Decision-Making: The third examined decision-making under pressure: operating in real time versus building in initiative-taking review. The discussion weighed the trade-offs of fast, in-the-moment judgment calls against the value of pre-established decision criteria that reduce pressure on any single reviewer.
• Risk Communication: The fourth centered on communication between companies, where shared vocabulary and greater harmonization make our prevention efforts more efficient across the supply chain. Participants agreed that aligning common definitions and reporting formats would reduce duplicated effort and speed up how concerns move across supply chain partners.

A consistent theme ran through our discussions: food fraud audits are becoming more focused, training documentation is being formalized further, and food document fraud specifically is drawing increasing attention from both industry and regulators. These threats are not new to me, but the urgency behind them is. As AI tools reshape both detection and deception, I believe our role as a forum for comparing notes across companies and regulatory bodies becomes more valuable, not less.

Our PDG growth and activities also reflect a broader shift in the field. What began in 2017 as a niche technical discussion has become a standing venue where collegiate, regulatory, and industry members work through shared problems together, rather than in isolation.

This year’s PDG meeting reaffirmed our role as a forum for practical, cross-industry dialogue on food fraud and food defense challenges.

LINK: IAFP Food Fraud Professional Development Group: https://www.foodprotection.org/get-involved/professional-development-groups/food-fraud-pdg/

[Note: This project was led and directed by John W. Spink, PhD. Human-directed and human-reviewed AI support was provided by ChatGPT, Claude.ai, NotebookLM (Google), Grammarly, and EndNote.]