April 22, 2008
Grocers Working at Being Food Safe
By Tom Ryan
Nearly 40 retailers, representing approximately 6,000 supermarkets, have volunteered to implement “Be Food Safe” through their in-store and external customer communications programs. Originally launched by the USDA and the U.S. Partnership for Food Safety Education, the campaign encourages the use of colorful, modular icons and photography to illustrate the basic safe food handling practices of clean, separate, cook and chill.
According to research conducted by the Partnership, 64 percent of consumers say it is “very important” to follow safe food handling at home, yet many consumers are not consistent in doing so. The same study found that consumers believed it was “very important” to educate the public on safe food handling, with most believing that food companies and the government should provide this information.
“It is important that consumers receive frequent reminders of the importance of safe food handling to reduce the risk of illness,” said Shelley Feist, executive director of the Partnership, in a press release.
Odonna Mathews, president of Odonna Mathews Consulting and a RetailWire BrainTrust
panelist, said that from her perspective, Wegmans and Giant Food of Landover
have been industry leaders over many years in providing numerous food safety
messages and programs to consumers. Now she finds many others willing and interested
in communicating food safety messages.
“Many of these licensed retailers are
using or plan to use the clean, separate, cook, and chill messages and new
colorful icons in various ways,” said Ms. Mathews. “They include information
on their websites, in-store by the meat, deli and produce departments, consumer
brochures and magazines, retailer TV and radio shows and announcements, consumer
columns in store circulars, as well as kid’s tours, cooking schools and in-store
demos.”
Ms. Mathews also noted that manufacturers have more opportunities to
partner with retailers to develop seasonal messages and in-store promotions
through the Be Food Safe campaign.
“Food and non-food companies have a role to play,” she noted. “With consumer confidence down to 66 percent of shoppers saying they are mostly or completely confident in the safety of the food supply, I believe that retailers and manufacturers can increase their confidence by providing food safety consumer information. Consumers are looking for this type of information.”
Moreover, research from the Partnership for Food Safety Education shows that new “Be Food Safe” logo on food products and in-store makes consumers feel more positive about the manufacturer or store.
“With all the recalls this past year, retailers are looking for ways to be pro-active with their customers and the ‘Be Food Safe’ materials provide one way to do that,” said Ms. Mathews. “Innovative manufacturers will look for ways to partner with licensed retailers to develop positive messages and promotions this year.”
Discussion question: Do you think food safety programs at retail have become more critical in the wake of the spate of recent recalls in the grocery industry? Should retailers and suppliers be pursuing these programs to ensure public safety, restore trust in their offerings, or for goodwill? What suppliers or manufacturers are most likely to partner with retailers in a broad reaching consumer education effort like this?
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It’s always a good idea to promote food safety, but from a pure pragmatic point of view, it’s probably more critical now, because the public is better educated, journalists increasingly love witch hunts, doctors have more sophisticated diagnostic tools/skills, and there are more lawyers around. You can never back off education at store level, since many retailers change employees like undershirts. There’s certainly good will to be gained; RetailWire recently featured one of our magazine’s stories on an independent (Co-op Food Stores, Hanover, NH) that has attained star status among its followers for, among other things, close attention to food safety.
It is important to identify the cause of food safety problems as well as what things a consumer can do to choose safe food and keep it that way.
Scaring consumers about unsafe food from a source followed by instructions on how to keep food safe is not consistent. Solutions need to be directed to what consumers can do to stop or prevent the problem being discussed in the media.
It’s always a good idea to promote the safe handling of food. Retailers should be saluted for doing this. But most of the recent food scares had little or nothing to do with how the consumer handled the food–the problem was with the suppliers. A consumer can do nothing about “downer” cows being used for meat or contaminated ingredients from China.
Suppliers must make certain that their food is safe when it arrives at retail. Retailers need to make certain that the safe food they received from suppliers is safe when it is sold to consumers. And then consumers should safely handle the food at home.
Part of what consumers need to know about food safety is how to take care of food in transit from store to home. And how to keep and store it at home. The former is a perhaps unexpected outcome of having to drive miles between store and home. The latter is perhaps influenced by sell by, use by and best before dates. Not everyone knows that these only apply before the package is opened and that afterwards, food can spoil quickly regardless of what the date says. There is sometimes information about this as well but it is generally in very small print.
You can’t over-estimate the importance of food safety, but at the same time you should always remember that raising the issue…well…raises the issue. Don’t be surprised when inquiring media minds start testing exactly how safe “safe” stores really are.
As the population of the US has grown and become more diverse, there has been a corresponding increase in the demand for production of US food products, as well as an increase in international food imports. This is part of the reason, along with many others, that have caused an increase in food safety and contamination issues. Some of the recent issues have been related to cutting corners in the production/supply chain process, as well as the lack of regulatory oversight of some non-US based suppliers. Many times, grocers and retailers are victims of supplier circumstances.
One of the positives to come out of this is that grocers and retailers have identified how important it is for public relations purposes to promptly notify their customers and the public with the information at hand, as well as a plan on what to do if they have been impacted.
It’s unlikely that food safety campaigns will raise any grocer’s sales by $1. Smart grocers use their public relations and advertising resources to raise sales and margins, using unique pitches. Stew Leonard’s, Trader Joe’s, and other well-run grocers don’t waste their time and money with me-too messages that sell nothing.
In my experience, sometimes retailers just need to experience doing “the right thing” and promoting how food safety can fit into their existing or future marketing plans.
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It’s always a good idea to promote food safety, but from a pure pragmatic point of view, it’s probably more critical now, because the public is better educated, journalists increasingly love witch hunts, doctors have more sophisticated diagnostic tools/skills, and there are more lawyers around. You can never back off education at store level, since many retailers change employees like undershirts. There’s certainly good will to be gained; RetailWire recently featured one of our magazine’s stories on an independent (Co-op Food Stores, Hanover, NH) that has attained star status among its followers for, among other things, close attention to food safety.
It is important to identify the cause of food safety problems as well as what things a consumer can do to choose safe food and keep it that way.
Scaring consumers about unsafe food from a source followed by instructions on how to keep food safe is not consistent. Solutions need to be directed to what consumers can do to stop or prevent the problem being discussed in the media.
It’s always a good idea to promote the safe handling of food. Retailers should be saluted for doing this. But most of the recent food scares had little or nothing to do with how the consumer handled the food–the problem was with the suppliers. A consumer can do nothing about “downer” cows being used for meat or contaminated ingredients from China.
Suppliers must make certain that their food is safe when it arrives at retail. Retailers need to make certain that the safe food they received from suppliers is safe when it is sold to consumers. And then consumers should safely handle the food at home.
Part of what consumers need to know about food safety is how to take care of food in transit from store to home. And how to keep and store it at home. The former is a perhaps unexpected outcome of having to drive miles between store and home. The latter is perhaps influenced by sell by, use by and best before dates. Not everyone knows that these only apply before the package is opened and that afterwards, food can spoil quickly regardless of what the date says. There is sometimes information about this as well but it is generally in very small print.
You can’t over-estimate the importance of food safety, but at the same time you should always remember that raising the issue…well…raises the issue. Don’t be surprised when inquiring media minds start testing exactly how safe “safe” stores really are.
As the population of the US has grown and become more diverse, there has been a corresponding increase in the demand for production of US food products, as well as an increase in international food imports. This is part of the reason, along with many others, that have caused an increase in food safety and contamination issues. Some of the recent issues have been related to cutting corners in the production/supply chain process, as well as the lack of regulatory oversight of some non-US based suppliers. Many times, grocers and retailers are victims of supplier circumstances.
One of the positives to come out of this is that grocers and retailers have identified how important it is for public relations purposes to promptly notify their customers and the public with the information at hand, as well as a plan on what to do if they have been impacted.
It’s unlikely that food safety campaigns will raise any grocer’s sales by $1. Smart grocers use their public relations and advertising resources to raise sales and margins, using unique pitches. Stew Leonard’s, Trader Joe’s, and other well-run grocers don’t waste their time and money with me-too messages that sell nothing.
In my experience, sometimes retailers just need to experience doing “the right thing” and promoting how food safety can fit into their existing or future marketing plans.