3 crisis PR takeaways from General Mills’ flour recall

In the food industry, customers’ health and safety are on the line; any recall situation can turn bad. Every brand manager should treat a recall as a crisis even if nothing bad has happened. Taking steps in a recall will protect your brand and persuade your fans to stick with you during and after the crisis.

General Mills recently recalled 10 million pounds of flour after health officials traced 38 E. coli cases to contaminated flour. General Mills also took steps that might have averted a more serious crisis.

Here are three lessons we can learn from its product recall:

1. Have your game plan ready.

The biggest mistake is believing a crisis could never happen to you.

Have a game plan in place before a crisis. Think about scenarios and prepare template press releases, social media posts and blog posts for the crisis. Know who will speak to the media, who will answer questions online and where customers can ask questions and voice concerns.

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