Unlock document.
This document is partially blurred.
Unlock all pages and 1 million more documents.
Get Access
Peanut Butter Salmonella
The assigned case study about the salmonella outbreak is one of the largest cases in history. The main issue
that is being discussed is why PCA was holding onto critical information that was kept secret from the
public. PCA chose an unethical way of dealing with the crisis, instead of letting the public know all the
details. I do remember as a child when something similar to this happened but it was with “Peter Pan”
peanut butter. I believe that the biggest problem surrounding this case was the fact that they did not want
to lose their business and have their name tarnished. This crisis created a number of challenges for PCA
and the rest of the food industry. Because of the decision to remain silent caused multiple deaths and
caused people to get sick with salmonella because of their contaminated peanut products.
Organizations that are globally recognized such as PCA should never take the silent approach, especially
when the lives of others are at risk. When the lives of others are at risk and the possibility of consumers
getting sick, the CDC and FDA should be contacted immideatly and they should cancel all products and
stop the production and spreading of the products. Also in this case, in a situation like this, as soon as the
first case of salmonella was reported, there should’ve been an instant stop to the production and the selling
of the product without the CDC or FDA’s say so. Doing this is important because hiding the situation could
result in more than just losing the company but, the possibility of a lawsuit and many more people getting
sick and even dying. They used a third party communication tactic known as "proxy communication". Proxy
communicators would speak on the behalf of an entire industry in the event organizations are afflicted with a
crisi, and choose to not speak on the situation.
According to the passage, proxy communicators provided messages designed to clarify the situation to the
public, and allow consumers to protect themselves. When choosing to have someone speak on the behalf of
your organization, the truth and whatever evidence that was reported need to be presented to the
communicator. The potential complications for a proxy communicator during a crisis all depends on the
importance of the situation is that they are trying to clarify to the public. Factors that also need to be
considered is how long the crisis has been going on for, it can also depend on how severity of the crisis is.
According to Millner and Sellnor proxy communicators arose as one of the first line of defense for
consumers that wanted to learn more about the recall and how to avoid the illness.
When you have an outbreak and how you plan to fix an issue like this should be the first thing on everyone’s
mind that is connected in any way with the establishment, especially for such a big organization.
Stakeholders invested within the company should also have been notified as soon as the product was
found contaminated so that they could make their necessary adjustments. Once the test from the laboratory
came back positive for salmonella and they should’ve removed and stopped all production and spread of
their brand. PCA made the wrong decision with the lack of communication. People around the world were
misinformed throughout the contamination crisis and if it was handled differently, the speed would’ve been
minimum.
