Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Ethical issues McDonalds face
Ethical issues in the fast food industry
Ethical and moral issues in the food industry
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Ethical issues McDonalds face
Taco Bell is a United States based fast food restaurant specializing in Mexican food. The company is owned by the Yum! Brand company. Their main audiences are young adults or kids looking for a cheap meal or families looking for a quick, easy to pick up dinner.
In January 2011, a class-action lawsuit was filed claiming that Taco Bell’s beef isn’t 100% beef. The lawsuit from California claimed that Taco Bell’s meat that is used in their tacos, burritos and other foods do not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture’s standards to be considered beef.
The firm claimed to have the product tested and said it was less than 35% beef. Taco Bell couldn’t ignore the case and responded that its beef contained 88% USDA inspected beef and the rest is water, spices, oats, starch,
…show more content…
and other ingredients. However, the company had to take more action once the story spread rapidly online. Obviously, customers were upset.
Finding out something being advertised as food isn’t 100% food is a problem. Luckily, Taco Bell had the perfect response.
Part 2: The Response
The next day, Taco Bell advertised a full page print ad in various newspapers across the country, such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In big, bold letters, the advertisement said “Thank you for suing us. Here’s the truth about our seasoned beef”. They then proceed to list all their ingredients and even go on to say that 100% beef wouldn’t even taste good. Taco Bell also states that they plan to take legal action to anyone who made false allegations against their product.
Taco Bell’s CEO, Greg Creed, signed the ad and even posted a video on Youtube further explaining the advertisement. Creed told the media he wanted to “set the record straight” and that the ingredients have always been listed on Taco Bell’s website. “We believe it’s important that consumers make informed decisions about what they eat, and so for many years have provided details of our ingredients on our website,” Rob Poetsch, Taco Bell spokesman, told ABC News. The lawsuit was quietly dropped and it had no effect on Taco Bell
whatsoever. Even though the lawsuit had little credibility, Taco Bell was applauded for their quick, creative and aggressive thinking. Pros included having one spokesperson for the company and personalized the ads by allowing Creed, the CEO, to sign them. The Youtube video explaining the ingredients also helped relate the company to a face, allowing customers to trust Taco Bell again. Other pros include the complete honesty the company expressed about their “not so secret” ingredients. By detailing every ingredient and allowing customers full access to that information, the company was able to regain the consumer’s trust. Some cons include the claim that Taco Bell would take legal action against everyone in the class-action lawsuit who ruined the reputation of their meat. It ended up being somewhat of an empty threat, and many customers felt the idea was too aggressive-making it seem like the company was on more of a defensive side than it needed to be, especially if they were telling the truth about their ingredients. Part 3: Evaluation and Conclusions Taco Bell recovered almost immediately from the crisis due to their quick thinking and fast response. A typical amount to spend for a full page national ad can be around $100,000, so the company went all out to end the crisis as quickly as possible. It’s interesting to again note Taco Bell’s unusual take to the crisis. Sarcasm was heavily prominent in their ad, and since they had nothing to apologize for anyway the ad could be as creative and humorous as possible. I don’t think I would have changed a lot about how this situation was handled. I thought Taco Bell’s different stance on a crisis worked out very well for them.
First, there are the formulas they use. They are as careful with ingredients and proportions with Wainwrights Dog Food as they are with most of the bigger, more expensive brands. Hypoallergenic ingredients, including real meat, are carefully blended with quality carbs, important additives like yucca and taurine, and the formula is scientifically balanced.
In recent years, it is not even necessary to turn on the news to hear about the bad reputation farming has been getting in recent years. What with the media focusing on things like drugs in animals and Pink Slime, or Lean Finely Textured Beef, it is a wonder that people are eating “non-organic” foods. However, many pro-farming organizations having been trying to fight back against these slanders. Still, the battle is not without heavy competition, and a good portion of it comes from Chipotle, a fast food Mexican restaurant that claims to only use completely organic ingredients in their food. Chipotle is constantly introducing advertisements claiming to have the natural ingredients while slandering the name of farmers everywhere. Perhaps the most well-known is “The Scarecrow,” a three minute ad that features some of the most haunting images Chipotle has ever featured. While “The Scarecrow” uses tear-inducing images and the almost eerie music to entice the audience to the company’s “free-range farming” ideals, it lacks substantial logos yet, it still
Taco Bells currently one of the top prominent Mexican fast food chains in the United States.
The article is talking about how Taco bell is inventing something that was supposedly existing. But taco bell had different ways of selling their quesalupas to people, their target market is usually the younger crowd looking for cheap good tasting food. So of course the people are going to go to taco bell, and try everything new that they come out with. Taco bell was striving to be different from other fast food places and brain wash teens into thinking their fast food, food, is better than all of the other fast food places. The article says that they are trying to copy REAL Mexican food, and taco bell is brainwashing people into thinking they are coming out with all of this “NEW” Mexican food. When in reality it is all just copied from old
“The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared or fast food, confronts a platter covered with inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any creature that every lived (Berry 9).” This a great example that makes that makes us learn and think about when we eat a fast food product and also what it contains. This should a reason for us to be thinkful of the food products that we consume on a daily basis, and so do our
... flesh are then ground into a paste-like matter, which is cleansed with the previously mentioned ammonia to rid it of E. coli. The meat filler product is purchased by many fast food restaurants, such as McDonald’s. The Beef Products executive predicts that his product will be in 100% of hamburgers within the next five years.
B. Credibility statement-"Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., is one of the leading fast-casual Mexican restaurants in the United States, with more than 1,200 company-owned outlets in 38 states ( International Directory of Company Histories)."
Due to false advertising, I feel that certain food companies are being careless in trying to make people buy their products in order to make money in the quickest way possible. My only suggestions for this situation are either the companies to tell the truth about their products, or stop advertising completely. If the companies could spend more time researching the effects of their products, then they could make improvements to their foods or maybe find alternatives to the ingredients. That way people can make the right decisions in buying what is best for them and their children. Thank you for your time.
Zinczenko shares his personal story about how fast-food restaurants such as Taco Bell and McDonald’s led to a weight problem during his high-school years. He claims that the ease of accessibility and lack of healthy alternatives make it all too easy to fall into the cycle of unhealthy eating. Zinczenko also contends that the lack of nutrition labels on fast-food products leaves the consumer in the dark about what he or she is actually consuming. At the time Zinczenko wrote his article, fast-food restaurants were not willingly disclosing nutritional values of their products. Today this has changed. Fast-food companies, including McDonald’s, have put the full nutritional information of their products directly on the packaging and wrappers. All other fast-food establishments either post it on the menu board (Panera), offer easy access to pamphlets containing all nutritional information of their menu in store, or have it easily accessible online (Taco Bell, KFC). I am sure that this is a helpful step forward toward educating the public as to what they are consuming, but has this new knowledge to consumers had a dramatic change toward ending obesity? No. People have always known that eating a Big Mac and fries with the giant soft drinks that McDonald’s and other chains offer is not healthy; putting the nutritional labels on these items has done little to nothing to stop people from eating these high-calorie meals. This again leads back to the point that people as consumers need to be more accountable to themselves and stop blaming others for what they willingly choose to put in their
This investigation conveyed that equine DNA or horse meat was found in beef burgers sold in a company well known Tesco. It was manufactured as displayed above by Silvercrest plant in Monaghan. This 29% of horse DNA or equine DNA should not be in this product. The investigation continued some of the burgers were Tesco’s own brand everyday value beef burgers. There was 8 burgers in this packet. Horse DNA was found in beef burgers in the UK and Irish supermarkets. This horse meat controversy lead to the Tesco supermarket removing all frozen burgers for sale to consumers from its shop shelves quite quickly and immediately whether they had been found to contain horse meat or not. The group technical director of Tesco made it clear that the presence
Yum! is an American fast food company and one of the world’s largest fast food restaurant companies with presence in over 125 countries, operating the licensed brands which are famous worldwide e.g. KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, A&W Restaurants, Long John Silver’s and the Wing Street.
Increasing consumer sentiment towards the negative health effects of red meat, timed with increasing inventories of product supplied from Canada and Mexico as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has caused prices in the consumer market to plummet. (Mohr, 1999) As a result, ranchers were seeing that their finished product was commanding lesser dollar values while their inputs of feed and medication was remaining the same or rising. Another factor contributing to the shrinking profit margins of beef producers was the overall consistency and quality of the meat.
Whenever we buy a product, we’re relying on both the company being honest with us about its contents as well as government regulations that do not always have the best interest of the consumer in mind. The first element to be included in my Food Bill of Rights is honesty. There are too many cases where American food has caused people to become sick and even caused fatalities because consumers do not know what they are eating. If you really look into the standards of what can be labeled as particular foods, the knowledge is really shocking. Consider the current policy of the United States Department of Agriculture; only 40% of beef is required for a company to label their products as such (Taco Bell’s Beef Problem). Further research shows the standards for meat in schools is lower than the standards for meat in fast food. Even with these outrageously low standards, there are still places to eat that don’t meet the requirements to label their products. Only a few years ago, Taco Bell was sued because they claimed their beef was 88% beef. However, when their meat was inspected it didn’t even make the required 40% minimum standard set by th...
Burger king have admitted to selling burgers that have horsemeat in them after the two weeks that they have denied It. The fast food chain had said their products were not involved but due to new tests that said the guarantees were incorrect will not break the trust of customers. Burger king have tried to organize a cover up the fact they used horsemeat until they could find another supplier. People now wonder if they even know what is being put into their products. The burgers that were contaminated had been made by the Irish-based processing company, Silver crest which have made burgers for Tesco, Asda and others. Burger king are now shipping thousands of burgers to Germany and Italy so that they meet their demand at its UK outlets. Silvercrest had been using a lot of non-approved ingredients in their burgers for many brands. Burger King said that samples were recently taken from Silvercrest and showed that there was a very small trace of equine DNA. They promised to send 100% Britain and Irish beef patties and have still not done so which shows the relationship between customers