(eng): As top managers have to lead decision-making processes every day, they use a various palette of supporting tools, often without the knowledge of their theoretical backgrounds. Nevertheless, especially when dealing with judgements provided by experts, some theoretical assumptions have to be fulfilled. One of them is transitivity, an intuitively appealing property that is usually taken for granted. When incorporated in the decision-making process, intransitivity of judgements or preferences can lead to unwanted consequences and the results of decision-supporting tools can be misleading. It seems that such an issue is not often addressed in industrial control problems involving manufacturing industries. To this end, we offer a simple and efficient method to deal with intransitive preferences in this research domain. To illustrate the applicability of this general mathematical method, we use it to support the risk management process in the food industry. The obtained results provide meaningful managerial implications.