Taco Bell has recalled 2.3 million pounds / 1.o4 million kg of its signature Seasoned Beef Taco Filling after a customer found a metal shaving in their order late last week. Just goes to show you that when you go big in the food biz, you can also lose big, all because of something very small…
Chalupas (above) tacos and wraps are among the most popular
Taco Bell Menu Items, and all feature the company’s
signature Seasoned Ground Beef mixture.
Tacos aren’t the only Taco Bell menu item that features the company’s signature Seasoned Ground Beef product. In fact, most of their mains do. So it caused a major stir among the Bell’s customers last weekend – not to mention an all-hands-on-deck response from the company’s head office – when they discovered that many of their fave Bell treats were not available because the joint was out of Beef. How could this happen? Apparently, all it takes is one little piece of metal getting past quality control at the plant…
As soon as the problem was discovered, the Bell quarantined 2.3 million pounds of Seasoned Beef in a supply chain serving 21 states ‘across the eastern Midwest, northern Southeast and Northeast regions’, and it’s manufacturing partner shut down the offending production facility.
The PR brigade leapt into action…
“Nothing is more important than our customers’ safety, and nothing means more to us than their trust,” said Julie Masino, President for North America, Taco Bell Corp, in a media statement. “As soon as we received the first consumer complaint, we immediately acted to remove the product from the affected restaurants and proactively worked with the supplier to inform the USDA of our steps to protect our guests.”
The USDA reported no ‘adverse reactions’ from diners as a result of the contamination.
The potentially disastrous problem was nipped in the bud. But at what cost?
Glad they had insurance…
I’ll bet Taco Bell was glad they insurance against such a catastrophe. Let’s say, conservatively, that the Bell tossed out 2.3 million pounds of Beef product, that cost it (US)$3.50 per pound. That means the company just wrote off a little over (US)$8 million. And I can’t begin to estimate how much business the frontline franchisees lost because they were suddenly out of beef. The company said only one of two production lines used to prepare Seasoned Beef was affected by the problem, but made no guarantees about when the full Bell menu would be available again. Don’t cry for the Bell, though. They undoubtedly had insurance to cover the loss.
One huge issue I have…
What a huge, disgusting waste of food! And Beef, at that – one of the most resource-intensive least-sustainable foods we have going. Anybody who works in the food service biz knows that food processing plants all have multiple quality control systems to ensure that stuff like metal fragments don’t get out the factory door. By rights, all that should have been wasted should have been one bag of Beef product, caught by the metal detector. What happened at the plant where the Seasoned Beef was made? We may never know, but you can bet folks at Taco Bell will be asking the manufacturers some tough questions.
On the up side…
The brand can thank the emergency for all the free media exposure it generated. Everything was perfect for a positive spin: Fast response, no injuries, major corporate responsibility statement opportunity. Incalculable social media traffic/awareness generated for the brand name. I won’t venture to guess how much dollar-value in good will and free advertising the incident will bring Taco Bell. But I’m guessing there are some folks on the top floor at the head office who are considering the losses outweighed by the gains.
Any way you look at it, Taco Bell wins.
~ Maggie J.