Photo credit: Mike Mozart
Chipotle Mexican Grill is obtaining some favorable notices on its efforts to manage its food poisoning crisis. Over 500 customers have become ill since last July from multiple outbreaks of norovirus, salmonella and E. coli at a few different Chipotle restaurants. .
Chipotle closed its restaurants nationwide – over 2,000 of them — for four hours on Monday for a virtual meeting with employees. Company executives explained new food safety procedures the company is taking to regain consumers’ trust.
“People will come back,” Steve Ells, the company’s founder and co-chief executive, told more than 50,000 employees via video.
Help for Small Farmers
In a video clip posted on Periscope, Ells said the company will dedicate $10 million to help small farmers who supply Chipotle ingredients implement food safety measures, such as more rigorous testing.
“That means even the ingredients they sell to other companies will be safe — and that’s good for everybody, not just Chipotle,” Ells said.
Some experts were skeptical. “Whether that’s sufficient to persuade consumers to come back in a significant way is questionable,” Allen Adamson, founder of BrandSimple, a marketing consultancy, told the New York Times. “It’s going to take significant meaningful action that goes beyond telling employees to be more careful and, unfortunately, some time before consumers start to believe it.”
Other PR crisis management experts gave the company good marks for its response but said it must do more to regain customer trust.
“Any time you stop the operations of your organization, if you think about how large Chipotle is, that’s a lot of stores, it’s a lot of revenue,” said Earl Wells, president of PR agency e3communications, reported TWC News. “I think it shows a significant commitment that they’re looking to do something.”
Wells was optimistic, although not certain, that the campaign will succeed. “People are loyal to the brand, they’ll come back, and if they do what they say they’re going to do and they’re transparent about doing it, I think people will come back,” he said.
Time for a Gut Check
The Sacramento Bee editorial board said it is rooting for the chain. It its editorial, Our Gut Says Chipotle Deserves Another Chance; the newspaper said the meeting was an excellent exercise in transparency. It cited the concrete food safety steps it is taking, including high-resolution DNA scans of products, blanching, and marinating food to kill microbes. “Chipotle is doing the right thing, unlike many corporations that resort to spin during crises,” it said.
Chipotle made its name with freshly prepared, chemical-free food in a business dominated by processed, fried food. It would be shame for people to return to processed, preservative-filled food just because they think it is safer, the newspaper argued.
Bottom Line: PR experts applaud Chipotle’s high-profile closing of restaurants nationwide for an employee meeting and its numerous steps to improve food safety. However, regaining trust will requires a long-term effort marked by concrete deeds.
What’s your opinion of Chipotle’s latest PR endeavors? What would you recommend they do? And will you purchase a burrito there soon? Please comment below.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
