ABP Food Group By: Brooke Stuart

Background ABP Food Group was founded by Larry Goodman It is located in Ireland and works with over 35,000 farmers Has become one of the leading beef processors in Ireland and the UK

Products and Services All facilities have been thoroughly inspected in the past and all procedures have been approved The beef is said to be natural, sustainable, low in saturated fat, high in vitamin E and vitamin B, high in minerals, and always tender “To ensure the value of by-products is maximized and the environmental impact of our business and customers is minimized”

Crisis The beef that was processed at Silvercrest, one of ABP’s plants, tested positive for 29% horse DNA The organization once prided itself on its all- natural and easily traceable beef ABP’s reputation was tarnished and companies such as Taco Bell and Tesco cut off their contracts

Organizational Response ABP was used to dealing with business-to- business issues rather than business to consumer issues They initially did not know what to say and tried to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible Eventually Paul Finnerty, chief executive, came out and admitted that Silvercrest was at fault however changes would be made in order to prevent this from occurring to their other plants

Organizational Response ABP needed to make huge changes in order to save business with the companies they had contracts with Silvercrest only consisted of 5% of ABP’s turnover, therefore the company could still do damage control It sold Silvercrest, stopped buying from meat traders altogether, and claimed it would only buy products from places the company has thoroughly audited They also demanded a DNA swabbing of every animal processed in Ireland

Media Response Newspaper and magazine articles were very critical and quick to blame ABP for the horse meat crisis They attacked Larry Goodman, the founder, because of his past reputation of financial malpractice This was not fair because Goodman’s past had nothing to do with the crisis

Media Response News reporters and interviewers on television had a much more objective mindset on the crisis Instead of automatically blaming ABP individually, the news looked further into the issue at hand and did not put all of the negativity on one organization

Stakeholder Response The main stakeholders are individual consumers, businesses ABP worked with, farmers, and the media

Stakeholder Response Many individual consumers were upset and disgusted once they learned they could have possibly eaten horse meat Many people claimed they would only order chicken from fast food restaurants, or solely vegetable items

Stakeholder Response There was a lot of backlash from businesses that bought their beef from ABP They trusted ABP to supply them with quality and natural beef, and their trust was broken Large businesses such as Burger King came out with statements that they had terminated their relationship with the organization

Recommendations ABP did a decent job considering the amount of pressure it was under and the fact that the organization was not used to dealing with this type of crisis Goodman and Finnerty should have come out with statements right when the crisis first hit; they appeared very guilty and as though they were trying to hide something Should have made more of an effort to not only keep their current contracts, but win back the contracts with businesses such as Burger King that they had lost due to the crisis