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Monday 19 August 2013

Serving food disaster

Greetings everyone, this is my first time blogging and I believe that most of the bloggers went through this stage some nervous others excited but me am honoured and I can’t wait to start sharing my thoughts with the world. My posts will be based on events management from planning to managing them. A lot has changed since we started using social media to communicate with our target audiences and it has made communication a lot easier.
Ever wondered what you might eat unknowingly? Yes food disasters do happen at some events.
Bug found in a strawberry yoghurt 
Questions to ask:
What do you do when you find something like this in your plate? How to react to such incidents?Who is to blame? Which tone to use? Who is responsible? How to handle this matter?
We all like attending different types of events because we like the food part. Some of us attend the event thinking what will the dish look like and which desserts they might offer us at the event. We like to experience what other food may taste like but founding a bug in your food is something else. You lose your appetite in a sec. What's important is your reaction to this incident and what do you recommend. Incidents like this happen more often at some outdoor events, so also as an event manager you need to be careful on where to plan an event. So they say a customer is always right, but also need to know how to react if such incident happen although the reputation of the owner will be at stake. The tone of the client laying a complain might be loud and that might create a bad publicity stunt for your company. As a the event manager be calm and take care of the situation immediately and apologise for the incident. Afterall we are all humans and mistakes do happen but that will determine how you solve the matter to be forgotten.

Chopped bug inside a salad
Whats for supper?
As the event manager you need to check which food will be served the day of the event and also double check the food before it goes to the clients to avoid what your clients might find in their food such as chopped bugs. A good publicity stunt is what's needed by the company not a disaster event of the month. Such incident are always looked after, and not to happen in any way. A good reputation is what the company need to be able to host other events and to make their clients happy. For the clients to come again it will be determined by how they were treated and the hospitality they were given during the event. Making the clients happy is what the event mananger need to acknowledge and plan the best event that creates a free publicity for their organisation. No company wants a disaster that will cost their company's reputation and bad mouthed to the public.There is no such thing as pretty disaster, a pretty disaster is still a disaster that can cause the pretty bad publicity stunt for your company.  
   

36 comments:

  1. To be honest I stop eating the food. But the person to be blammed will be the event manager because he is the one who must make sure that everything is perfect. But it would be also a bad thing to blame the event manager because he/she is not responsible for catering, event magers tend to invite catering companies.

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  2. Indeed...it will also be bad for the image of the company.

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  3. It is always better to wake up early and prepare fresh food for the people who will be attending your event, than to serve them funny things. Which might end up making you loose clients because people will end up bad mouthing your company and calling you or your company names. Trust me, they will never eat at your events ever again and journalists will just attend your events to come and get or collect nasty information about you or the food you serve them. you are going to end up getting bad publicity.

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    1. True... this will be chaos and could definately take down the company.

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    2. Juwi how will you react to such incident?

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  4. I agree,it is very crucial for the event manager to double check the food before they serve the clients. Thats another way of maintain a good corporate image.

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    1. The aim for the company is to please their clients not to bring the worst.

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    2. Faith lets say you're attendin an event and such incident happen to you, what will be your reaction to this matter?

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    3. If something like this happens to me, I would report the food to the event manager and it will be hard for me to trust the brand or company again.

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  5. Wow finding the bug on your food mmm you lose appetite and I would never attend that particular event again. This is a serious crisis and would make people sick; this would totally ruin the company’s reputation. It is important to keep clean when preparing food, make people happy.

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    1. True Refiloe, the company's image is very important and first impression last.

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  6. You see now finding bugs in your food is a total NO-NO!!! I mean my appetite will be completely ruined and of course my view of the company will also be ruined. Events companies really need to double check their things before they run into such disasters. I mean how does one explain how a bug landed in a doughnut??????

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    1. It is wise for companies to always look after the needs of their customers, they wont even explain how the bug landed but they always apologise and say sorry mam this will never happen again. There is no guarantee that it wont happen again first impression last.

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  7. Honestly if I find something on my food at an event, I will live the food PEROID and also blog about it on my blog ,because will be so annoyed but I won’t live the event before it ends because of something I found in my food.

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  8. Eish! your points managed to hit home, just seing the bugg on those dishes nearly made me close the page and not read further. The thing is I adore my food very much so thinking of meeting an intruder on my plate turns me off

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    1. Johannes i have a question for you, lets say you are the PRP for company that is hosting the event, and this incident happen how will you handle this matter?

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  9. True that Johannes its definately a turn off,i would probably vomit. Such things are not meant to happen some would not eat for days.

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  10. Iv never experience such intruders in my side dish but how ever its not a gud thing had to preper your throat only to find out ull be dishing up bungs and all that yerrr! nasty.

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  11. Nomzamo you do not wanna experience this but i have a question for you, If something like this happen to you how will you react to such incident?

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  12. lol, interesting post, I would remove the bug and carry on eating #joking, ofcouse that would really spoil my appetite.
    On the blaming part, Iwould not really blame the catering because bugs sometimes dont know where to fly and i dont think the catering service would put a bug on purpose.

    working in the food industry is hard and dirty, the things that goes in kitchen lol, I speak from experience. I am not trying to convience you otherwise when you would like to go fet some fast food, but some industries are very clean and they cook with love

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  13. @Daz lol...true but you have to be very careful when it comes to food for clients, yes such things do happen unknowingly, be careful on what you eat.

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  14. It is the event manager's job to make sure that everything is in order and guests are happy. But I disagree that the event manager is to blame for the food. The food is prepared by chefs and served by waitrons, though it is the event manager's duty to fix the scandal s/he is not to blame.

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    1. True the food is prepared by chefs, but as a clients who are you gonna call if such incident happen?...the manager of course.

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  15. I put the blame on the waiters and chefs because they are actually the last people to deal with the food before it is served to the guests and if they are any good at what they do they should check that everything is in order before they lose some customers

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  16. @Anele lol...It might happen that when the chefs were busy cooking they were not aware there's a bug inside the food, because am sure they wouln't do this on purpose unless they no longer wanna work there.

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  17. some events managers do know how to come up with the right food for their events.

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    1. Yes they might be very careful with what they feed to the guests

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  18. the thing is. people want to do everything for themselve only in the name of saving money, hence they lose planning there and there. as a manager, you manage things not do them. leave the pros to do their job and jst have a successful event.

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    1. True...Events managers need to do what their job description mean

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  19. As an event planner you have to be open minded so that you do not overlap and end up doing what is not expected of you in planning that particular event you busy with.

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    1. True, There must be people heliping you out coz you cant do all the work

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  20. events are a great way to make money but proper hospitality is needed

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    1. True we like events and we must enjoy them

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  21. haaaa stop eating at the spot and sue that restuarant because thats so unprofessional hey

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    1. Lol some they would ask for another plate

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