Crisis Management - Plan Ahead for a Food Incident

A representative from the health department is on the phone. She claims that six people who dined at your restaurant last night have been suffering symptoms similar to those caused by salmonella poisoning. Or E. coli. Or Hepatitis B. Or listeria. Your first thought is to go into hiding - perhaps with a lawyer and an insurance agent - clean up the source of the infection, hush up the whole project and get back to the business of serving meals.

Wrong choice, experts say. When a food-borne illness is linked to your restaurant, you've got to become the good guy: Work with the health department to find the cause and eliminate the potential of it happening again; notify customers and employees who may have been exposed, if possible; and, just as crucially, be forthright with the press.

"The health department has a responsibility to prevent the spread of disease, so if it feels there is potential for further spread of the food-borne illness, it will go to the media," explains Daren Williams, vice president of public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard Inc., St. Louis, Mo. "if that is the case, you may as well go to them too, because then you'll be seen as being open and honest and pro-active rather than reactive. That can be very critical in setting the tone for the situation. You don't want your key customers hearing about the situation from the media."

The public relations industry generally refers to the basics of crisis management as the Four Rs: Regret, Responsibility, Reform and Restitution.

• Plan Ahead
  

  Panic ensues in a state of crisis, so plan out all of your actions way in advance, those in the know advise. That makes the difference between ending your run as a successful restaurateur or overcoming the situation as an unpleasant blip in the ongoing life of your restaurant. And part of the reason is this: In a time of crisis, you will be able to tell the media about all the pro-active food-safety measures you take, and you will be prepared enough to respond to problems quickly to curtail further spread of the problem.

  Step one is to take every food-safety precaution possible. That might involve hiring an independent firm to do a vulnerability assessment, pointing out the weakest points in your operation's procedures and recommending corrective action.

  Step two is to put together a crisis-management team and build a crisis-management plan. "This plan would outline basic communication rules: Who would be responsible for communicating with which audience," Williams explains. One manager or executive - a person who should be trained by crisis-management experts in everything from what to wear to what questions to anticipate - may be designated as media spokesperson, while another would compose a press statement and fax it to the press and key customers. A third might be in charge of starting and managing a phone chain to ensure that all managers necessary are notified.

  It is vitial to bring people from many areas onto the crisis-management team. A crisis communication plan is about communication, but also needs to be a diversified team approach that represents different aspects of the company, including quality assurance, operations, claims and communications. A team approach can bring perspectives that one person alone wouldn't necessarily be able to think of.The primary benefit of such a plan is preparedness. Without a practiced plan, you have to start at ground zero, which is awful when time is of the essence.

  Step three is to establish a good relationship with your local health department and local media before a crisis ever hits. If the health department knows that you're the kind of restaurateur that takes sanitation seriously, that you pride yourself on thorough employee training and following HAACP and doing the right thing, that will affect the inspectors' attitude during a crisis. Remember, the health department talks to the media.

  You have two choices: You can prepare or you can react. If you're prepared, you will be more successful than if you react, guaranteed.