Odwalla Inc is a company that produces food products such as fruit , smoothies as well as food bars, based in America. The company was founded in the city of Santa Cruz, California in 80s` with headquarters in Half Moon Bay.

Odwalla Inc was its boom soon after its incorporation in the year 1985, and eventually expanded distribution from the single state of California to the rest of North America, and went public in the year 1993. However, its decline came but for a short period of time when a fatal outbreak of dangerous bacteria E. coli O157:H7 was reported due to the company`s infected apple . As a result the company had to recall its products which followed by 90% reduction in sales soon after the outbreak. With time the company managed to recover from the loss, and, soon after a period couple of years, was profitable again. It was later acquired by Coca-Cola in the year 2001 for the sum of $181 million American dollars and eventually became a small part of The Coca-Cola Company.

Odwalla had a wide range of food products such as juices, smoothies, soy milk, mineral water, soft beverages, and also many types of food bars. Initially Odwalla used to sell unpasteurized juices to keep the flavor of the fruit, but soon E. coli outbreak followed and the company had to adopt a method of called flash pasteurization which somehow kept the flavor intact and stopped growth of bacteria.

The outbreak of the bacteria

Most food and beverage manufacturing companies pride themselves on using the finest and freshest ingredients available for their products. However, what happens when a company’s product is blamed for a foodborne illness? In 1996, on the October 30th, Odwalla Inc, which was first choice for the health conscious customers, received a heavy blow due to a connection amongst Odwalla apple juice and outbreak of E. Coli. The contaminated fruit juice had a upsetting effect on minors in case of regular consumption. The outbreak resulted in the death of a few months old child but at the same time Odwalla `s publics as well as the stakeholders involved kept their belief in the company`s response as well was there to support it majorly. The company, although struggling slightly after the crisis, underwent what many hailed as a successful renewal (Auserswald, 1999: Griffin, 2002: Odwalla, Inc., 1997) Odwalla was able to retain major portion of its accounts and had the affected families as well as the loyal customers standing behind the company as it established itself yet again and not only that but as a leader on health safety.

This case is a perfect example to understand how a company can not only embrace crisis very well but also make use of it as an opportunity to eventually lead the industry along with initiating a change industry wide as well as support an entire organizational renewal. The organizational crisis had vulranble timing for the industry catering food products, which resulted in a complete transformation of the whole industry following strict health regulations as well as adopting new and alternative production processes.

The sequence of events: In the year 1996, Anna Gimmestad, around 16 month old little girl was infected of E.Coli infection and admitted to the children hospital in Denver. Later the same month FDA got a tip that according to 3 state health departments E.Coli outbreak was reported. Soon after that the state of Washington related e coli outbreak to the fruit juices of Odwalla. On Oct 30, public health department of the state Washington sent an alert to Odwalla that there exists a linkage between Odwalla fruit juices with many of recent E.Coli cases. In response Odwalla without any delay started a on purpose recall of its food products which had apple juice in them. Later on Oct 31 Odwalla took services from the Edelman public relations from their office respond to the crisis as well as the communication required. On the very same date, the FDA also launched an investigation for a period of 14 months.

The company later prolonged the voluntary recall of its fruit products’ on the 1st of November to add to it the carrot as well as vegetable juice products. There were 13 different juices in total. Odwalla dispatched its delivery trucks to the retailers for the recall in total seven states at the same time the in-house teams got the recall done in 2 days. Company provided press release on the 2nd Nov telling the recall has been accomplished completely.

Soon in the period of 24 hours they also had a website up explaining the true situation. At the same time company went forward to make refunds to the people who have already bought apple juices as well as those who got ill and had bore medical costs from drinking the Odwalla apple juice. On the 3rd of November the officials of the company went forward to defend the company’s sanitation system in the newspapers in Seattle as well as launched a second explanatory website to give information about the recall. That website was in addition to the already created numbers for consumers as well as suppliers, which were total 80 in number.

On 4th of November, FDA gave their statement that this juice from Odwalla was the reason behind the e coli outbreak. The company confirmed that tested apple juice samples from Odwalla `s Tukwila, Washington, distribution center were infected with e coli. In a press conference that was held again on the 5th of November, Steltenpohl suggested Odwalla to try another heat pasteurization method for future apple juice production .He also mentioned that he went to meet several affected families in person.

Unfortunately, the crisis took the life of the little girl and the only life taken due to outbreak on November 8,when little Anna Gimmestad died as a result of E. coli poisoning that was carried from the Odwalla apple juice. Following the death of little Anna, Odwalla launched a press release to offer condolences to the grieved family from the company. In a same press release on November 8 it was pointed out that no E.Coli bacteria were found at Odwalla `s Dinuba plant.

Soon the focus of media and consumers took shift from Odwalla to the suppliers as well as the unsafe actions. Not to forget the fresh-juice industry processes. Safeway which is a big grocery giant rejected the un-pasteurized juice of food producing companies, which only added to the situation already very tense between Odwalla and the similar businesses. Stephen Williamson, Click Here to Buy Now. Instant Delivery in Your Mailbox.

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