1. Crisis Training for Fresh Produce Industry: Mock Outbreak Scenarios Audrey Kreske PhD Benjamin Chapman PhD

2. Overview  Problem  Target audience  General  Single company  Method  Results  Future Work

3. Crisis  any unstable and dangerous social situation regarding economic, military, personal, political, or societal affairs, especially one involving an impending abrupt change.  Social media  Industry doesn’t understand the immediate response  Within minutes on the internet

4. Risk communication  Need to be able to address  What you are doing  Why you have risk reduction practices  Update often  In absence, it gets filled by… whomever (Powell, 1997) Scientific Assessment of Risk Information Vacuum Public Perception of Risk Extension Agents

5. Problem  The potential impact of major FB illness outbreak could be catastrophic to NC agriculture.  Producers, industry leaders, and stakeholders need to be prepared for the low-information and low-trust communication complications that have historically risen during these events. It is difficult to put preparedness into ACTION

6. Problem  An outbreak occurs associated with a product  Trust and credibility lost  Sales plummet  Media attention  Traditional and internet, blogs, twitter  Consumer  Recall  Government regulators  Recovery

7. Baseline survey of crisis management practices in NC  Industry Group leaders  3 out 5 have a crisis plan template  Difficult to reach remainder  Growers  26% of growers had a crisis management plan  74% did not have a plan

8. Dealing with a crisis  Bad example  Tomato Growers  Attacked Federal Government  Did not bring their safe food handling practices to the fore front of the media  Ed Beckman, president of the California Tomato Farmers, said “It has been a tough struggle, because a lot of the messaging out in the national media really focused on the fact that the FDA was saying, 'Don't eat red round or Roma tomatoes unless they come from the following states.”

9. Dealing with a crisis  "The trace-back investigation should not have taken as long as it did," Beckman said. "We know in the tomato industry we are required to hold these records. If someone is not doing their job, we need to have an understanding that that's the case. If that's not the case, then why did it take so long to come to the conclusion that FDA has come to?"

10. Dealing with a crisis  Good example  Prank video  Domino’s employees defacing pizza and sandwiches was uploaded to YouTube  Dominos held off making a statement for 24 hours  Didn’t want to add fuel to the fire  Overnight the YouTube video reached quarter million viewers

11. Dealing with a crisis  Viral Video of their Own  The company president apologized.  He thanked the online community for bringing the issue to his attention.  He separated the company from the wrongdoers and announced their prosecution.  And he outlined the steps that Domino's was taking to deal with the issue to make sure it never happens again.

12. Dealing with a crisis  Salmonella Enteritidis and shell eggs  From May 1 to September 14, 2010, a total of 2,752 illnesses were reported.  In June, Santa Clara County health officials identified 14 people on Yelp complaining about getting sick at a restaurant. Purpose: To connect people with great local businesses

13. Purpose  To raise awareness about needing to prepare for a crisis  To learn crisis management and communication skills  To reduce the impact harmful media attention by openly speaking about, and demonstrating risk management practices

14. Method – Role Play  Enables students to put themselves in situations they have never experienced (Van Ments, 1999)  Students can empathize with and understand other people’s motivations  Students recall more information from role-play sessions than from lectures (De Neve & Heppener, 1997)

15. Method – Role Play Outbreak Investigation Media Regulator Food Safety Expert Food Safety Expert Farm Bureau Rep Horticulture Expert Extension Associates

16. Target Audience  General  Farmers and distributors  Industry groups  Single company  Separate departments

17. Target Audience  General

18. Target Audience  Single company

19. Press release: August 15, 2010  NC DHHS There are an increased number of illnesses which are linked together with a genetic fingerprint  Salmonella Poona  24 illnesses in NC  CDC has been dispatched

20. Minutes after the press release  “Reports are that this outbreak is linked to tomatoes”  “Or perhaps it’s not tomatoes?”  “What the hell is wrong with tomatoes?”  2009  2008  2007

21. August 19, 2009 Salmonella – NC Health department says its tomatoes  What do you do?  Who do you call?  What kind of things do you do to assess your system?

22. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Results Low High Not important Extremely important No more prepared More prepared

23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Results  How important is it for you to prepare for a crisis?  Before 5.79 out of 7  After 6.33 out of 7  How would you rate the likelihood of the products you grow being contaminated with microbial hazards?  Before 3.68 out of 7  After 4.45 out of 7 Low High Not important Extremely important

24. Results  How would you rate your readiness to deal with a crisis?  Before 4.18 out of 7  After 4.37 out of 7  Are you confident in your ability to trace where your product went in the event of an issue?  Before 5. 6 out of 7  After 5.12 out of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Low High

25. Results  How would you rate your business’ ability to recover from a crisis?  Before 4.36 out of 7  After 4.22 out of 7  Do you feel this session made you no more prepared or more prepared?  After 6.03 out of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Low High No more prepared More prepared

26. Results There has been an increase in participation of other food safety related training programs such as GAPs training after completing crisis management role-play

27. Future  Conduct evaluation for role play versus lecture style  Include video recordings in role play  Build materials that meet the needs of our participants

28. Benjamin Chapman, PhD Audrey Kreske, PhD benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu ackreske@ncsu.edu www.foodsafetyinfosheets.com www.barfblog.com www.foodsafetyinfosheets.com www.barfblog.com www.bites.ksu.edu