I feel badly for XL Foods for this major meat recall. I am sure they never intend to produce products that may be suspect in making people sick. But they sure have dropped the ball from a PR standpoint when it comes to “dealing” with this latest and expanding alarm over a wide range of meats possibly tainted with e-coli.
I read in today’s Calgary paper “despite repeated phone calls and messages over the past three days, officials with XL have not responded to Herald queries…” That’s not what I consider a ringing example of being up front, honest and eager to re-establish public confidence in your products.
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I hate to keep dragging out this old example, but I am still impressed with how Maple Leaf Foods dealt with that listeria outbreak and tainted food crisis in 2008. President and CEO Michael McCain went before the cameras and media on an on-going basis, which showed the company was sincere, concerned, and wanted to fix the problem.
I don’t know about XL, but it is not helping the Canadian beef industry, for the company just to be silent on the whole issue. XL should be pro-active and trying to allay any consumer fears they may have generally about Canada’s meat supply. They should be out there with a what-happened-and-what-we-are-doing-about-it message. Smart retailers should be putting signs on the front doors of their stores “We do NOT carry XL meat products.” If XL isn’t sure how to approach it, there are communications companies that deal with crisis management. You can’t go to a beef industry event without at least one speaker and usually several declaring that Canada produces safe, high quality beef. And there are also lots of speakers talking about the need to connect with the consumers, meet consumer needs, the importance of producing safe, high quality food, the importance of being environmentally responsible, and good stewards of the land, etc. etc. – yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.
Yet along comes an issue, which may not rattle public confidence in beef to the core, but I am sure it makes a lot of people wonder about “is there a problem with the burger I have in the freezer”, or “is there anything wrong with that steak I bought.” Here’s the United States telling Canada it doesn’t want meat from that plant in the country.
And amid all this XL is silent.
Personally, I am not particularly alarmed about the quality or safety of Canadian beef, but what the heck, this might be a good night to have chicken.
