Recent high-profile food safety incidents highlight the need for having a crisis-response plan for food safety incidents. An article at RestaurantNews.com tells the tale of a small restaurant chain whose response to an E. coli outbreak was exemplary and worth imitating.<\/p>\n
When the chain realized that their lettuce had sickened several people, they immediately told restaurant general managers to discard all produce. They also switched their lettuce supplier and coordinated with government health officials to determine the precise source of the contamination, and apologized to communities that had been affected by the outbreak.<\/p>\n
All of these measures are par for the course, but this chain went even further. They invited the media in to publicize their new lettuce-washing protocols and even gave out free food for three days in order to regain customer goodwill. They also paid all the medical bills for people who had been sickened by their food. This comprehensive response allowed the chain to recover from the E. coli crisis quickly with very little lost business.<\/p>\n