E.coli Episode at Jack in the Box
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The issue of quality is one that has dominated discussion in American business in recent years. Quality circles, quality plans, total quality management and similar topics have become popular topics for articles in scholarly and popular magazines. For most companies, poor quality in their products mean that their profits suffer, and their customers may endure some inconvenience, or even financial losses. In the food industry, poor quality can lead to sickness, or even death. This is the situation that confronted one of the nation's largest fast-food operators, Jack In The Box in 1993 when four customers died and hundreds of others suffered ill health effects from an outbreak of E. coli after eating contaminated hamburger at the restaurants. Since that time, Jack In The Box, which is owned by Foodmaker, Inc., has tried to recover from the disaster, but its methods have been severely questioned by some observers. This research examines the outbreak and its aftermath, particularly with regard to two primary stakeholders, victims of E. coli and franchisees.Escherichia coli lives in the bowels of cattle where it is typically not a danger to human consumers. On occasion, however, such as when intestines are ruptured or inadvertently cut during the butchering process, E. coli can spill out of the intestines and mix with the ground meat that is being processed. This is the theory as to how the bacterium migrated to the meat that was eventually se
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from some victims that the company has been slow to pay medical bills ("Jack in Box," 1994, p. A11).
The families of victims who died were not part of the class action suit, but instead pursued individual lawsuits against the company. Settlements in these lawsuits reached into several million dollars, and the company also settled with a family whose 12-year old son lapsed into a 42-day coma as a result of the poisoning (Martin, 20 March 1995, p. 82). Two years after the outbreak, the court cases have been settled, and the company is moving to put the episode behind it, but will not release detailed financial information about the total amount paid to victims of the poisoning.
Foodmaker's Reaction to Franchisees
The poisoning victims were not the only ones who suffered as a result of the outbreak. Sales at Jack In The Box restaurants throughout the country immediately plummeted, although the outbreak was apparently confined to the Washington area. Franchisees located in other areas and who were unaffected by the outbreak, found their own store sales slumping as a result of the negative publicity that the incident generated. Consumers who left the restaurant at that point have been slow to return, and the tension among Jack
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Jack Box, Chi Chi's, Outlook Foodmaker, Franchisee Association, , Reaction Victims, Killer Hamburgers, Outbreak Escherichia, Nation's Restaurant, Family Restaurants, jack box, brooks 1994, class action, nation's restaurant, nation's restaurant pp, 1994 56, hamburgers 1993, martin 1995, poor quality, class action suit, restaurant chain, killer hamburgers 1993, 1993 february, class action lawsuit, brooks 1994 56,
Approximate Word count = 1606
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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