Fast action is weapon against the crisis of horse meat

Exposed to a crisis which involves some of the largest global companies in the food sector, the companies that have seen their brands linked to the scandal of selling horse meat instead of beef had to act fast. Pretty much without question, took over the error, withdrew products from the market, they asked for apologies to consumers and took urgent steps to signal that the problem will not be repeated. Any injury seemed to be less relevant than the questioning the integrity of giants such as Nestlé, Switzerland Brazilian JBS, the British supermarket group Tesco or fast-food Burger King.
Gonzalo Brujó, chairman of Interbrand to Iberia and Latin America and CEO of Interbrand Spain Office, points out that transparency is the most important concept to be applied at this time. "It is necessary to inform the consumer quickly and take action. There's nothing wrong with selling horse meat, if people know who are consuming it, "says the expert. "If well managed, this crisis will pass and the marks will not be undermined in the eyes of consumers."
Rightfully so, yesterday two more world industry giant, JBS and Nestlé, withdrew from the market several products and reviewed their agreements with partners as a result of the scandal. In a statement, Nestle assumed that there are more than 1% of horse meat products that have been collected. This is the limit set in the United Kingdom by the Food Safety Agency to indicate possible tampering or negligence. "We are now suspending the supply of all of our finished products produced using meat supplied by the r and w s l in H. J. Schypke, a subcontractor of one of our suppliers, the JBS Toledo NV ", said the statement from Swiss company.
Nestlé claims that strengthened the testing of meat products sold in Europe. The company says there is no problem of food safety, "but errors in the labelling of products means that they do not meet the high standards that consumers expect of us."
Also note, JBS said the JBS sales office in Belgium (JBS Toledo) was notified about the case, which has suspended contracts with the Schypke and not trade more European products until confidence in the safety of the supply system of the block be restored.
According to the company, no case of violation has been identified in the products manufactured by the JBS, which also says that the Schypke "does not belong to his group and has no relation with the operating company or corporate".
Yesterday, shares of JBS 3.89% drop recorded in the Bovespa, while the performance of Nestle, in Zurich, was positive in 1.58%. The worst performance of the Swiss company was registered on February 14.
After the European Union find that horse meat was being sold to consumers as being of bovine origin, at least five companies have already had to explain about the procedures used in the manufacture or sale of products.
Burger King has admitted that some of its burgers manufactured in Ireland contained horse meat. Another scandal was hampered by the supermarket chain Tesco, which lost almost £ 300 million (about US $ 900 million) in market value after the discovery of horse meat in burgers that were sold by the network.
Up to now, have already been withdrawn from selling products in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, Italy and Spain. Last week, the European Union approved a plan to analyze the presence of undeclared horse meat mixed in processed foods across Europe. The tests have started to be applied and the results will be presented officially on April 15.