Food For Thought: Improving Food Manufacturer & Retailer Teamwork In A Recall (Part Two Of Three)

By Sam Lewis, editor, Food Online; Alicia Sims-Miller, reverse logistics and business integration manager, PepsiCo; and Kim Combs, recall/regulatory compliance manager, The Kroger Company

View the entire web chat or read part one of the series

On Tuesday, October 11, Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) partnered with Food Online for a live web chat, Food For Thought: Improving Food Manufacturer & Retailer Teamwork In A Recall. In this 45-minute live Q&A, Kim Combs, recall/regulatory compliance manager for The Kroger Co and Alicia Sims-Miller, manager of the reverse logistics and business integration teams for PepsiCo’s North American Nutrition Division joined Food Online’s editor Sam Lewis to answer the food industry’s questions on the topic.

Sam: Joel's asking, “Is there data that breaks down product recalls caused by retailers versus food manufacturers. If so, what are the root causes of retail-caused recalls? How can that root cause be addressed to eliminate or minimize damage?” Kim, if you want to offer your perspective on that, and then Alicia can add some additional points.

Kim: As far as a percentage of the times that it is a manufacturer responsibility for a recall versus a retailer, while I don't have specific numbers, I would say the very, very-high majority of the recalls that I am handling are due to an issue on the manufacturing side of the business. I think retail food stores, manufacturing plants, and other parts of the supply chain have a lot of controls in place to monitor some of the issues that you may have been referring to there, Sam. Ultimately, this is stemming from a manufacturing error, whether it's an ingredient manufacturing or a finished product manufacturing issue. A lot of times, it's mislabeling of product during product changeovers, or the wrong label being placed on the manufacturing line. We see that quite often. That is the source of a lot of recalls.

Sam: Alicia, do you have anything to add?

Alicia: I think Kim answered that saying that there's not actually information out there that will say the percentage of retailers versus manufacturers. But definitely, it's important to have controls and checks in place to identify the problem and correct it. There are certain requirements out there that I could say actually have the numbers that say retailers versus manufacturers. I haven't seen any type of information to speak on that.

Sam: To piggy back on that notion is this question coming in. It says, when we hand product over to distributors, we know what lot numbers we gave them. Where does the responsibility lie in knowing what lot numbers were distributed to every store? Kim, you can offer your thoughts. Alicia, again, feel free to chime in with additional thoughts.

Kim: This is certainly a tricky piece of the business. We do receive specific correspondence from distributors as to what products were specifically carried in our stores, or whether we were delivered specific lot numbers associated with those recalls. We do see that communication coming from distributors.

The challenge with this is, from a retail perspective is, depending on how well publicized this recall is, sometimes we don't always have the luxury of time to wait for the distributors to process the recall notice and get that through their channels down to the retail level. We sometimes have to make decisions on what is best for our customers on how we handle a specific recall situation when we're dealing with distributors.

You have to keep in mind these distributors are receiving the same recall information as a retailer at that same time. You just have to factor in that delay in getting that information directly in the hands of the retailer. I will say we handle that on a case by case basis, but that is a challenge that a manufacturer does need to recognize if their products are going through distributors in some instances.

Alicia: I will say one thing. Definitely with a manufacturer, we will provide information according to who we directly sold to. One thing Kim shared regarding we rely on our retailers to go to the distributor level, and using some clear communication, like it will be X amount of days to get back, because we have to go a little bit further and drill down, but it's pretty, I will say, a good process where our retailers are able to work with us to go down to the final level of where the product may have landed.

Sam: Additionally on that, if you're a manufacturer, if you needed to issue a recall, you'd only know what you gave the distributor, but would have no idea which retailers were given to stores. How would the manufacturer solve that issue?

Alicia: As shared, we are able to identify products that we sold directly to. However, working with our retailers, most of them are able to go down to the store level or whatever distributors, wherever they may have shipped the products to, they work with us.

I will say that we've been fortunate enough that our retailers will help us to identify every case. As stated previously, it may take a little bit longer, because naturally anything that's at their warehouse that we sold directly to is easy to come across. Most retailers, with their systems, are able to go down to the final level of where the product might have landed.

Sam: Excellent. This one's going to be specifically for Kim. Does Kroger handle a class one recall differently than a class two recall in terms of internal communications, reactions, and etc.? I know that there might be certain tricks of the trade that Kroger has. Without giving too much detail to internal processes, can you offer your thoughts on that?

Kim: Yeah, absolutely. We do treat class one recalls slightly differently from class two and three with regards to the communications that goes out to consumers. Specifically, when you look at the FDA definitions of what a class one recall is, it has the potential for death in there, or the irreversible damage. We are posting recall signs at our store shelves indicating that the product has been pulled, and identifying the specific code dates and lot codes involved in the recall.

The separate step is Kroger does use our consumer loyalty data to identify the specific customers who may have potentially purchased that recalled product in our store. While we're not able to identify what code date a specific customer has purchased, we are able to identify what UPC they may have purchased. We work with our loyalty teams to identify those customers. We do reach out to the customers using a robo-call, is what we call it, but a voice recorded message, as well as print the recall message at the bottom of the receipt tape the next time that they do shop with us. It's a little bit more than that. But overall, we're communicating using phone messages and receipt tape message to those potential customers just advising them to check their pantries or check their freezers for the product.

Sam: The next time I scan my Kroger Plus card, I'll know that if something is going to be recalled, I'll be on the call list for it.

Kim: Oh yes. That is correct.

Sam: I'd like both of your perspectives on this next issue. As we all know, e-commerce is becoming more and more popular. That's spreading over to grocery stores. What are the biggest challenges of e-commerce during a recall for a food manufacturer, as well as for a retailer? Alicia, if you want to offer some perspective first, and then we can get Kim's thoughts.

Alicia: I want to start off by first saying the one thing that e-commerce will do is when they receive notification, we'll basically, I guess terminology, is lock down everything by the time they receive the notification, which is what you want to do. You want to make sure that until you're able to go through the product, nothing goes out there that could potentially be a recall item. That is a positive thing.

Now, it will take time for e-commerce team, a minimum of 30 days, to kind of identify the product that has been locked down. Sometimes, depending on the severity and when you're trying to get information back, 30 days could seem like a lengthy time frame. As stated, the one good thing is that everything is locked down and there's nothing potentially bad going out during that timeframe.

Kim: One of our unique challenges is trying to translate whether the recall that we just issued is pulling a small percentage of products off the shelf or whether it's clearing our shelves in particular stores. Obviously, we are going down to the best by, or the sell by code date level, or lot code level.

If we are clearing the store shelves, we would really prefer to not have that product available online for our customers to purchase or to put it in their basket. If they did have it in their basket and we cleared the shelves, obviously that product would not be available to the customers. That's just one of the unique things that I've seen come up through the e-commerce situation.

Sam: Yeah, it definitely puts a completely different spin on how things are sold as well as collected. I can only imagine it's a wrinkle that needs to be flattened out over the course of time. Thankfully, we have experts like you that can make that happen.

We've had a few different people ask this question. “What are your perspectives on the biggest obstacles that are happening in a recall? What are the hiccups that you're seeing from each other in the recall situation?” To add on top of that, what would you want your wish list of, "Hey, this would make our life easier." What would that look like? Alicia, you can go ahead and start, and then if we can get Kim's thoughts.

Alicia: Obviously, at the top of my wish list, is to never have a recall. However, we know that's not reality. We're going to have a recall. It's just from my years of experience. It's just having the ability probably to resolve in more of a timely manner. That's not reality. That's probably one of the wish lists.

I think we're very good at providing all of the information up front. We try to stay in constant communication with our customers. We try to understand the nature of it. We try to communicate at all different levels. Naturally, if we have the ability to identify things and get it resolved sooner rather than later, that will be great, but there are times where we're unable to do that. Just timing would be the one wish list if I had the ability to change, I would change.

Kim: I really appreciate the times when I have a great technical resource from the company to discuss the recall situation with. A lot of times, a press release may go out on a Friday afternoon. That's sort of the joke, right? Recalls are issued on Friday. What we'll find is a notification is issued with a number for customers to call with questions, and that number goes into either an office or phone message with an office that is closed until Monday.

My wish list is to have some type of human individual reach out to me or just be available and have that public and press releases if that's available. There's a lot of times that Kroger may not be affected by the recall, but if it's not specified in the press release, then we just don't have any direct way of knowing that we weren't involved. I just need to get in touch with someone to verify before I just send notices out to our customers, or to our stores. That's one of items on my wish list.

Obviously, the other pieces are just having accurate information. Consumer UPCs are big. A lot of times, we do not see those in press releases. I know it doesn't make sense all the time, but the way Kroger is communicating with our stores and with our customers is using that consumer UPC number. If you're communicating using something that's more geared towards a warehouse, then that's not very helpful for the consumer. Obviously, providing me with distribution information is helpful, so I know whether I'm dealing with something that's just in a few stores, or one of our Kroger divisions, or if I'm dealing with something that's nationwide.

I guess another item on the wish list is, again, be prepared for how you're handling the customer notification. As I mentioned, we're contacting customers, alerting them of the recall, and we are directing them to contact the manufacturer for additional questions. We just need to make sure that our customers are handled appropriately and that your team is set up to handle those questions that may come back to you.

I guess one of the last pieces I'll add are photos. In this day and age, photos are very helpful, whether it's to see the product, identify that exact item. Any time you're able to communicate with photos or pictures of what a code date example might look like, I find that to be very beneficial.

Sam: This question is sort of asking for communication tools, which you were just talking about. Are there templates or formatted forms of communication that work best for clearly and concisely issuing a recall from a manufacturer to a retailer and work with the retailer to see what happened? What helps you?

Kim: Well, I would have to say if I spoke on behalf of all the retailers, reach out to them. See what type of communication they do want. Each retailer is communicating with their stores in a different way, and requires different pieces of information. If there's a retailer out there that you know is pulling every unit off a shelf of a specific UPC, all you need to communicate to that retailer really is make sure you have that UPC identified. All the other pieces of that are things that can be dealt with on the back end.

I would say just make sure you understand what your retailers are expecting, and if you're able to sort through and come up with a single form of communication out those retailers that covers what it is they're looking for, then that would be helpful. Then there's always going to be some unique, specific communication that may need to happen separately, but maybe that allows you to handle the masses and deal with some of the smaller one off situations a little easier.

For me, I have a specific form that I can communicate out. As long as all of the communication is provided either in a press release or some type of notification to me, usually we're able to work with that and ask for follow-up questions. It all does need to be documented and on paper. I won't issue recalls just by a phone call in saying, "Hey, pull this product." We really do need documented communication.

Alicia: You want to make sure that you are sending over documents. We definitely make sure that we send over documentation to our customers, as well we do follow-up calls to make sure that we are talking to someone live. Typically, we will communicate at different levels. Usually you have someone that's in quality or a buyer where we may have someone that's actually a little bit lower on the [desk work. We try to communicate at all different levels to make sure that we are hitting everyone that needs to know about the recall.

Also, for those that are maybe depending on how frequent you do recalls at just your level, you can always go to rapid recall express. There's a fillable form that you can utilize that will help with those necessary information that will be helpful for communicating recalls to your retailers into standardized form with information that will allow you to communicate. You can go on the gs1us.org website to pull up that form. That's a very, very helpful form. It's like a template that will allow you to give product information, lot information, anything that will be helpful to communicate to your customer.

Another thing that Kim has shared was photos. I would always say in the beginning of when you're having a recall, make sure that you take photos and not just of the case. You want to do it on the carton as well the individual packaging that's going to go to retailers. That way people can also not only see or read the UPC codes, but they can actually get a visual of where to find the best before by dates and the lot on the product.

Sam: Certainly, there are many tools available to help. It sounds like the best thing you can do is speak with your retailer or your distributor or your supplier, and figure out what works best for both of you, and just be open about it. Things will be easier. Does that sound about right?

Alicia: Yes, absolutely. That is correct.

In Part Three of Food For Thought: Improving Food Manufacturer & Retailer Teamwork In A Recall, Kim Combs and Alicia Sims-Miller will continue answering questions from the web chat’s live audience. Stay tuned.