Food Crisis Communication Unit

A task force immediately ready to intervene in all critical cases that may involve food companies.

Recalls and recalls of food products are the order of the day: 270 in 2022 and already more than 200 in June 2023, not to mention natural or anthropogenic contamination or biological hazards that may contaminate the product or a foreign body accidentally ended up in the food.

Encanto Public Relations, with 20 years of experience in crisis communication, presents a new operational model to help companies affected by critical situations.

A network of expert food technologists, nutritionists, biologists, lawyers, and communicators able to intervene in an interdisciplinary manner, with specific procedures and tools, to support companies that have to deal with operational difficulties as quickly as possible and, above all, communicate to institutions and consumers.

“The Crisis Unit,” explains Roberto Gazzini of Encanto PR, “plays a particularly important role during food emergencies, coordinating the emergency response activities, from the drafting of the press release, through in-depth studies that are useful to support the brand also scientifically, to the management of internal and external communication, to build coherent messages within the company and towards the end consumer.”

Companies often arrive unprepared for the critical event, because in Italy there is a lack of a culture of prevention, thinking that crises always and only involve others, while adequate preparation would facilitate communication management.

There is a tendency to underestimate that an emergency in the food sector, even without any particular health consequences, can still cause serious economic damage and instill mistrust in consumers.

In the event of a crisis affecting a company, the unit first deals with risk assessment, immediately putting in place concrete solutions to respond as best as it can. Any ‘incident’ requires a quicker response the greater the severity of the damage or the potential risk that could result and how much this could impact the authorities, stakeholders and consumers.

“Our model acts with a team of experts in the field,” concludes Roberto Gazzini, “capable of concretely supporting management to operate correctly in the event of a crisis with specific training courses, risk analysis, the preparation of specific intervention plans and the preparation of corporate spokesperson.”