Food recalls can impact restaurants at any time. Perhaps a vendor unknowingly sent you cheese contaminated with listeria, or you received ground beef containing foreign materials, like metal, wood, or glass. Would your team know what to do in these scenarios?
While the food safety breaches that trigger recalls don’t typically originate at the restaurant-level, food recalls can affect businesses across the supply chain—from the farm that grew the food to the restaurants that serve it. Regardless of what happened, the entire supply chain must take the issue seriously, acting quickly and properly to mitigate the risk. The process can be stressful, chaotic, and disorienting, especially if your team is unprepared.
During a recall, follow these best practices to minimize damages, protect public health, and maintain your brand reputation:
- Gather information. During a recall, a restaurant company’s biggest challenge is getting complete, accurate information from their suppliers and passing it along to all their locations. Your instinct may be to immediately alert your employees and customers about the situation. While it’s essential to get information out quickly, it’s also important to share details accurately. Stay calm, and focus on acting with speed and precision.
- Define the problem. Wherever the issue originates, it’s important to get clarity on the issue, scope, and details of the recall as they pertain to you. Depending on where you are in the supply chain, the information available to you and the action you need to take may vary. Before you speak publicly, work with your trading partners to determine exactly what happened, how it happened, and which products were affected. Pinpoint where the products traveled, and which of your restaurant locations could be impacted.
- Establish decision-making protocols. While the recall’s origin is not typically at the restaurant level, there will still be decisions you are responsible to make – and you will need to make them quickly because of short shelf life and throughput. Your team must be ready and able to make important decisions about whether to initiate, who to notify, and when to escalate. Restaurant employees must also determine whether to pull potentially contaminated products, even if it’s before an official recall decision is announced. Establish who’s responsible for decision-making at each restaurant location, plus who to notify at corporate about these issues.
- Collaborate with trading partners. Work closely and collaboratively with your supply chain partners. Establish clear protocols about recall messaging, how information will be shared, expected action, and event resolution. Ensure that everyone’s aligned to avoid delays, inaccuracies, and confusion.
- Prioritize clear, action-oriented communication. Key audiences—including employees, customers, and trading partners—need to know the reason for the recall and what to do next. Use clear language that drives specific actions. Emphasize to customers that you prioritize food safety and you’re working collaboratively to remove affected products from the marketplace. Acknowledge the inconvenience, offer support, and show that your company cares about customers’ health. Don’t place blame or get defensive. Be transparent and empathetic.
- Use multiple distribution channels. Maximize visibility and drive proper actions by utilizing multiple distribution channels to spread key messages. Work with your trading partners to issue information to the media. Post recall information on your restaurant’s website and social media. Display signage at your restaurants. Remember: what and how you communicate is important.
- Utilize integrated tech systems. When food businesses—from processors to retailers—use integrated tech solutions to manage recalls, they can act quickly, properly, and collaboratively. This helps minimize risks to their customers, supply chain partners, and reputation. Tech solutions dramatically improve collaboration, visibility, traceability, and efficiency, expediting recall management. Use integrated platforms that connect product data, supply chain partners, and communication channels. For instance, integrated traceability and recall-focused tools help trading partners maintain accurate, real-time records of product movements for faster recall resolution.
- Track progress and adjust accordingly. A recall moves quickly and changes often, so constantly track progress. Communicate with trading partners as you collectively track product retrieval, identify bottlenecks, and expand scope, if necessary. Update messaging, as needed, so key audiences receive real-time recall status and instructions.
- Document everything. Maintain detailed documentation from the moment a problem is flagged. Keep records about every step in the process: when you were notified, who notified you, which products were retrieved/destroyed, and how long each step took. Regulators will require this. Insurance claims will benefit from it. And it’s your best tool for debriefing and improving later. After a recall, review documentation with internal teams and supply chain partners to determine areas that could be improved. Implement corrective actions and update procedures accordingly.
As recalls continue occurring regularly, don’t think of these incidents as food safety failures. Rather, catching a food safety breach is often a sign that the system worked as it should by flagging potential issues before they become public health risks. Consumers are increasingly understanding this, and won’t necessarily blame your restaurant for a food recall. They will, however, watch how you manage the situation. Transparency and effective response will help reassure a nervous public, retain customers’ trust, and minimize damage to your brand reputation.
Roger Hancock, CEO of Recall InfoLink, is one of the world’s foremost experts on recalls, with experience that spans the retail, tech, data, regulatory, and supply chain. Recall InfoLink makes recalls faster, easier, and more accurate across the supply chain to protect consumers and brands. As the only company focused entirely on recalls, Recall InfoLink’s solutions drive immediate action, streamline the recall process, and simplify compliance. Roger is also a steering committee member of the Alliance for Recall Ready Communities.
