5 replies to this topic

[G M]

Recent article about the use of AI to make fraudulent claims against food:

 

The rise of AI food fraud: How to protect your business

https://www.foodaler.../ai-food-fraud/

 

 

I've always been a bit sceptical regarding some types of consumer complaints, and in the past photos could be relied upon to some degree, but there were still fraudsters willing to use "practical effects" to manipulate appearances.

 

But now, we have AI and LLM powered image and video generators, and with relatively minimal effort your product can be made to look as if anything conceivable in the minds of even the deranged has happened.  The little value a consumer, or potentially even customer, photo or video may have carried in the past seems to have evaporated.

[GMO]

People have always fabricated complaints. It's very easy to do so and hard to disprove for many. I'm sure it will happen that people will fabricate photos but if they're found out then it's going to be pretty serious consequences. Much easier to claim something which won't show up on a photo as false, like the packet was open or there was a bad smell etc.

 

I always think though you have to treat all complaints as real (unless there's really good evidence to the contrary). While some might not be real, there are far more where people have an issue and don't complain.

Edited by GMO, 04 June 2026 - 08:35 PM.

[MDaleDDF]

When I get a complaint, first thing is request an unopened bag of product be sent back to me for inspection.    99% don't do it and just go away.

[GMO]

I've had it. I once had a retailer threaten to recall a product over glass contamination. One product had been found. I drove to the store, the pack had a cut through the top so it was either deliberate in store or consumer contamination (also it was a domestic light bulb). No recall. 

 

But I've also had people who have claimed a complaint "definitely wasn't them" and then later they've found there was at least a possibility that it was.

 

I still think those are far fewer though than real issues that you never hear about. How many complaints you get depends a lot on the size of your brand, cost of your item, the expectations of the consumer and what you give them if there's an issue. But even in a branded business, we once knew we'd sent out products which were not the right quality. No food safety issue but if we'd still had them on site, we'd have scrapped them. The complaints level on that batch was only 1 in 200 of impacted products. And we were a generous company if you complained with a free phone line on pack.

[Scampi]

Had a complaint that a plastic tab (similar to what holds a CD case closed) was found inside a shell egg.........customer was adamant it wasn't possibly from the other ingredients.......sent it for mass spectrometry as consumer was threatening escalation

 

the results, plus a primer on how eggs are formed........

 

you get the picture

 

can't fix stupid no matter how hard you try

[TimG]

I had one that freaked me out the first year I was here. Complaint of glass in the maple syrup. Got a picture, yep looks exactly like glass. Told the VP "we might have a problem here." Thankfully he talked me down and said it happens to maple all the time so I looked more into it.

If you heat maple up after opening, the crystal that forms when it cools looks exactly like shards of glass. Now when I get those complaints (fairly often) I tell a consumer to go ahead and put the 'glass' shards in a bowl of warm water.

 

Not quite AI but just goes to show a picture might be worth 1000 words but the conclusions we jump to can still be fake news.