‘I phoned up Tesco this morning to find out the price of their beef burgers. They said 14/1.’
This is one of many jokes all over social media as the good old British sense of humour, as well as internet nerds responsible for images like this on Flickr, have a field day over this week’s horse meat scandal.
But opportunism was also the order of the day, as companies rode the publicity which the saga generated.
Take online meat supplier Exoticmeats.co.uk for example, and its product warning: ‘IMPORTANT NOTICE: All of our horse burgers contain horse meat, we do not add beef to our horse burgers.’
And, with a more subtle message in its press ads, was Morrisons: ‘All Morrisons burgers are made with 100% British beef. And all the fresh meat we prepare instore is sourced from British farms that we know and trust. So you know exactly what you’re getting at Morrisons’.
But arguably the biggest opportunist of all was Tesco - whose own label burgers were the worst offenders in the IFSA study - as CEO Philip Clarke took to the blogosphere last night with a humble essay on trust.
“Tesco will go above and beyond what is merely necessary to look after customers and will do the right thing, immediately and wholeheartedly,” he wrote.
More than just a proactive step in Tesco’s crisis management plan, Clarke seized the chance to connect with shoppers over the scandal and show a different - and no doubt welcome - side to the big corporate behemoth.
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