This previous spring wasn’t a very joyous time for Domino’s Pizza. In April, an worker at a franchised retailer in Conover, North Carolina, used a video digital camera to doc her co-worker within the act of violating quite a few meals security measures. The pizza maker — really, he was developing sandwiches on the time — made a whole lot of hundreds of stomachs flip within the video that rapidly went viral on YouTube.
It was a nightmare for the supply big, which already was combating lackluster gross sales in its U.S. shops. Because of the motion of two wayward people, a model that has constructed a repute over half a century was rapidly and severely broken. That’s the facility of the Web. That’s the facility websites like Twitter, Fb, MySpace and YouTube wield.
Although it’s now June, I’m penning this column in April. Domino’s is getting blended critiques for its response to the disaster, and rightfully so. Whereas I sympathize with the place during which Domino’s discovered itself after the video received traction, I can’t perceive why it took the corporate so lengthy to enter crisis-response mode. We now reside in an age the place info hits the lots instantaneously — however Domino’s didn’t have any significant response to the video till two days after it was first posted on YouTube. Within the meantime, the issue solely worsened as extra individuals seen the video and blogged about it on-line.
Maybe the Domino’s braintrust hoped the video would go unnoticed in the event that they didn’t draw consideration to it. Maybe, being a large, the corporate merely strikes slowly by advantage of the quantity of crimson tape it has to chop to get something achieved. I don’t know. However I do know this: for shoppers, the video was the final word scarecrow.
“How usually does that occur in different Domino’s shops?” People logically puzzled. However the video didn’t simply taint the Michigan-based franchise — it tainted all eating places, for my part. If this will occur in a Domino’s retailer in North Carolina, is it out of the query that it could possibly additionally occur in an impartial pizzeria in Des Moines or a seafood restaurant in Portland?
It’s no secret that issues like this happen now and again in skilled kitchens. Although the foodservice business does its finest to cover such circumstances, I’ve labored in sufficient eating places and have watched sufficient hidden-camera tv exhibits to know that the general public can’t all the time belief those that deal with its meals.
Fortunately, acts of this nature are few and much between. The overwhelming majority of foodservice employees are trustworthy, safety-conscious individuals who notice their actions can have an effect on the well being of others.
However the hoards that seen the embarrassing Domino’s video can’t be faulted for questioning how prevalent these acts are inside the foodservice business. Proper or incorrect, all eating places are dealing with a public indictment over this — yours included. You possibly can’t be in your restaurant always, however you’re accountable for what occurs in it, even when you’re away. For those who’ve not already taken steps to make sure one thing like this doesn’t occur to you, achieve this now, earlier than it’s too late.
Greatest,
Jeremy White, editor-in-chief
jwhite@www.pizzatoday.com
