A blade in my meat?

On September 30th, a former Tyson Foods employee found a blade near his working area, cut it into four pieces and threw it into the meat. A witness immidiately reported what happened. Authorities were called and the incident started to be investigated. 20-year-old Nwee Lah was arrested and taken under the custody of Amarillo, TX authorities.

All the meat touched by Lah was retrieved as soon as possible. The pieces of meat with the blades were found. They never left the perimeters of the packaging company.

Since the incident ocurred all information was kept confidential. Nothing was shared with the media. At the time, there was no need to let customers know because there was no risk involved to them. It was not until Lah was found guilty when the story was released.

At first glace it wasn't clear why Tyson would release this story. By doing so the company is admitting that their installations are not safe. Then why are they opening about it? I think is so that they won't have any skeletons in the closet. It would be more detrimental to have the story released in the future with a similar or worse circumstance.

Tyson has taken this as an opportunity to reinforce a message to their customers telling them that are the most important for the company. Spokesman Gary Mickelson said, " The safety of our beef products is vital to the continued sucess of our business, so we take matteres as this very seriously. We contacted local law enforcement about this incident after conducting our own investigation." With this statement the company sets an image of trust.