Recently, CEO Kruse is apologizing for placing tainted products on the retail shelf weeks after it was discovered that 3 people died from consuming Blue Bell products. The video of him should have been released 4 weeks ago, to show the public Blue Bell really cares about their loyal customer base. The reality is, it was launched 2 days ago because since the deaths were first reported, more people got sick and dirty plants were still in operation.
Fact: People have died from consuming Blue Bell product. In the United States with and with all of the food safety standards, testing and education available, events like this should not happen by a cash healthy corporation and is simply unacceptable. The comment of new procedures of safety checks, sanitation training, and product testing should have already been in place. The company now stating that all products going out the door will be checked is extraordinary and I ask, how is this physically possibly, leaving me to believe the company is still talking down to the public.
When the outbreak was first reported, the CEO’s initial comment and reply was that all products on the shelf are now safe and the marketing department stated that this was the first incident in they had in 108 years (some articles said 104). To me what their initial message said was, no concern here, just a minor blip, no worries, it’s fixed and by the way we haven’t killed anyone up to now.
The public should not be ok with this type of corporate response and behavior. Tylenol, set a responsible example on what to immediately do in the event of death. What they did was stop production, recall all products, fix the problem and in this situation introduced “tamper evident banding”, apologize and get back to business. Today the name is good.
Blue Bell is a business case study on what not to do which included initially waving off the issue, not be honest with the customer, not apologize, not initially pull all products from the shelf and not immediately shut down plants to find and fix the problem. Weeks later,mthe CEO is on his knees, embarrassed by his company’s lack of food safety procedures and realizing Blue Bell will have a heck of a time fixing their “good name”. Their legacy and name will be remembered and documented as products that killed consumers, plain and simple. Stay tuned for the rest of the story, it will be interesting.
Read the latest press release and see the video here.
Contact Darryl to better understand what not to do in the event of a crisis.
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