Food Safe Case Study

Case Overview

Recently, the best-known brand of natural and unpasteurized foods in the Western US --- Nutritional Foods Inc. --- is involved in food poisoning of their unpasteurized products.  So far more than four relevant reports had come in, and it was reported that two children are in critical condition because of such food poisonings. On the same day, the company announced to the public that all batches of these relevant unpasteurized items would be recalled.

Internal and External Stakeholders

In this case, internal stakeholders include Freda James (chief executive), Arata Nagashima (vice president for production), company managers who had been dispatched to the counties, employees of Nutritional Foods Inc., the Crisis Action Committee, which was formed to deal with such accidents, and the retailers that sell suspicious unpasteurized products. External stakeholders include two children who are in critical condition and their families, and other customers who claimed that they might be poisoned by the unpasteurized products of Nutritional Foods.

Moral Considerations

There are two main moral considerations which should be taken seriously in this case. On one hand, as regards two extremely sick children who are in the hospital, Nutritional Foods should be responsible for their safety. They could have a chance to die because of the food poisonings. Actually for every customer who had affected by the products in question and had become sick, Nutritional Foods has the responsibility for them. On the other hand, Nutritional Foods should take the safety of all customers into consideration. Since the company is famous for critical handling and distribution of unpasteurized products, Nutritional Foods should have high moral considerations on providing products that are safe and free of contamination to all customers.

Legal Considerations

Nutritional Foods should pay attention to legal considerations like potential lawsuits. Depending on the extent of poisoning affected by consumers, Nutritional Foods will have to face several lawsuits with different ranges. Furthermore, the public may question whether the company has been operated according to the state guidelines strictly? If the answer is negative, they will face more lawsuits and government inspections.

Financial Considerations

Financial considerations should be concluded into three parts. Firstly, once the company decided to recall the contaminated products, they lost revenues of those items. Secondly, if the company does not handle the case on the right track, they will lose consumers and finally lose its reputation. Thirdly, as mentioned above, the company might face several lawsuits, which might generate costs and payments depending on the range of the cases. In addition, if the company lose any case, they will have to pay the long-term compensation to those affected consumers.

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