Blue Bell consumers might be temporarily switching to other ice cream brands while the company tries to bounce back from a recent halt in production due to contaminated products.
On April 3, the company suspended production in Oklahoma after health officials discovered ice cream contaminated with Listeria. The foodborne bacteria was traced to the plant in Broken Arrow and has been linked to the death of three, according to KRQE News 13.
“Blue Bell is a prime example of how sometimes bad things can happen to a good brand,” Burt Smith, professor of marketing and management, said. “That something has happened and regardless of who’s to blame, there’s a problem that has to be solved and wisely. It looks to me like they are doing everything that they can to get that problem solved. Kind of the first rule of crisis management is that nobody plans to have a crisis, you have to plan for a crisis.”
Smith said when a brand or company has a crisis, people tend to boycott their products.
“[Blue Bell] is going to have a tough road for awhile,” Smith said. “For a while that’s going to be what people associate with their brand and that’s going to cause concerns. Which is why it’s so important anytime a bad thing befalls a god company, it’s important to step up, have a plan in place and work that plan and do everything possible to set things right.”
Smith said despite the current crisis, Blue Bell’s business will not be drastically affected.
“It really seems like they’ve come up and said, ‘hey, we made a mistake,’” Smith said. “Hopefully they’ll get that problem solved and I think because they’re doing it that way, I think the marketplace will be fairly forgiving because they’re not denying, they’re not trying to sweep anything under the rug. They’re trying to deal with it head on.”
Junior Drew Bellcock said the way that Blue Bell is handling the situation says a lot about the company.
“It shows that they value their costumers and their costumers’ well being,” Bellcock said. “It sets a great ethical examples for other companies.”
Smith said taking Blue Bell off the shelf will also open the door for competitors to target their customers.
“This is a chance for competitors to see an increase in their sales if the demand is still there for ice cream,” Smith said. “People want to buy Blue Bell, Blue Bell is not on the market, they’ll have to go with a competitor. So the opportunity may be there for a competitor to get an inroad.”
Senior Allison Goldapp said the Blue Bell crisis is similar to the Peter Pan peanut butter recall almost two years ago and common among many other food industry products.
“It happens to companies,” Goldapp said. “I don’t think, in the long run it’s going to effect them that much. I think people are eventually going to get passed it.”
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