This analysis points to the importance of timely, detailed responses to health- and food-related scandals, which can be emotionally evocative situations.

Josh Compton

https://www.prismjournal.org/uploads/1/2/5/6/125661607/v14-no1-a1.pdf

In December 2012, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland announced that beef sold by Tesco in the United Kingdom and Ireland tested positive for horse DNA. Media coverage of the scandal pointed to potentially grave implications—for Tesco, but also for related entities, particularly given the possibly emotive nature of the crisis. Applying Benoit’s (1995, 2014a) image restoration typology, this article analyses Tesco’s rhetorical choices in the days after the meat testing results were made public. The analysis suggests that Tesco’s image repair efforts were, in general, consistent and thorough, employing strategies and tactics that match Benoit’s recommendations and have solid track records of success. Three major implications emerged from the analysis: the importance of timeliness and using rhetoric of timeliness; the possibility of third-party minimisation attempts; and shifting the grounds away from health and toward transparency.

Compton, J. (2017). Food safety and corporate public relations: Image repair and the Tesco horse DNA scandal. PRism, 14(1), 1-8.