宜家如何化解马肉丸子风波

    很多人想想都会拒绝吃Seabiscuit（电影《奔腾年代》中马的名字——译注）。某些欧洲供应商销售掺有马肉的牛肉的新闻之所以会引发公众的强烈谴责，其中一个原因在于吃马肉这个文化禁忌。

    上周一，有媒体报道称，宜家（IKEA）一些欧洲店面销售的瑞典肉丸中含有这种牛肉。宜家坚持认为，美国店面销售的肉来自于美国的供应商。到目前为止，现阶段欧洲马肉丑闻中掺假的肉制品还没有流入美国。

    综合考虑，这件丑闻可能不会对宜家的业务带来太大的影响。从收入来看，宜家肉丸的销量仍十分可观——这也让宜家在靠自助式家具业务赚钱的同时又有了新的收入来源。

    但是这一事件可能会转变为消费者的信任危机。策略沟通公司Levick高级副总裁兼危机诉讼部主席吉尼•格拉博斯基说，总的来说，宜家处理得还不错。公司正视问题，同时提出了解决方案。而有些制造商却并未这样做。

    格拉博斯基说：“欧洲制造商试图扮演受害者的角色，这是一个经典的错误。”同时也是一种糟糕的危机管理方式。他表示，在这种危机中有三种角色，即受害者、恶棍和维护者。“鉴于公司的规模和资源，人们并不会把公司看作是受害者。”

    但公司可以扮演维护者的角色。宜家在这一方面做得很出色。它停止销售含有马肉的牛肉，而且还发布了新闻，告知客户哪些店面的肉制品是安全的。

    与其他危机一样，这个危机有它固有的一套特征，而且要求处理方作出针对性的反应。格拉博斯基说：“由于不涉及食品安全的问题，因此这次危机并没有大多数食品丑闻那么严重。然而，这件事情更具警示性，因为它着实让人们大吃一惊。原因不仅仅在于食品的误标，而且还在于餐桌上摆的可能是马肉这一事实，而吃马肉在很多文化中都受到强烈抵制。”

    食品造假的其他案例则带来了食品安全问题。例如，2008年，中国经销商在奶粉中掺入了三聚氰胺这种物质。三聚氰胺可以让牛奶的蛋白质含量达到一定的标准，但实际上，这些奶粉的蛋白质含量只有婴儿所需蛋白质含量的约1/6，而且还有毒副作用。

    毒害婴儿是可怕的，但是让人吃马肉也属于食品造假案例。《食品科学杂志》（Journal of Food Science）的一篇名为《食品造假为公共健康带来的危害》（Defining the Public Health threat of Food Fraud）的文章将食品造假定义为因谋取经济利益而在食品中蓄意掺假。食品造假并不是什么新鲜事。文章称：“自古以来，食品造假一直都有；有证据显示，带有假的罗马封印的双耳细颈椭圆土罐中装的是假橄榄油和假葡萄酒。”

    Many balk at the idea of biting into Seabiscuit. The cultural taboo around eating horse is one reason why the public has had such a negative reaction to the news that certain European suppliers have been shipping beef contaminated with horsemeat.

    On Monday, news broke that said beef made it into IKEA's Kottbullar Swedish meatballs served in some European facilities. Meat in the U.S., the company insists, comes from U.S. suppliers. So far, no contaminated meat in the ongoing European scandal has reached the U.S.

    To put the scandal in context, this will probably not significantly dent IKEA's business. Financially, its meatball sales are just gravy -- the company can more than float the business on the profits from its build-it-yourself furniture.

    But it could turn into a consumer trust problem. Mostly, says Gene Grabowski, senior vice president and chair of crisis litigation of the strategic communications firm Levick, IKEA has handled this well. It is addressing the issue and promising solutions. That is not true for some of the manufacturers.

    "The European manufacturers are making the classic mistake of trying to appear as victims," Grabowski says, which is bad crisis management. There are three players in crises like these, he says: the victim, the villain, and the vindicator. "People don't identify companies as victims because of their size and resources."

    Companies can, however, be the vindicator. In this respect, IKEA has done a fairly good job. It stopped sales of horsemeat-contaminated beef, and it issued press releases informing customers of the locations where the meat is known to be fine.

    This crisis, like every crisis, has its own set of circumstances and demands a tailored response. "It's less serious than most food scandals because safety is not really an issue," Grabowski says. "But it is more alarming because it's so shocking to people, not just that the food is mislabeled but that they may be eating horsemeat, and that's abhorrent in a lot of cultures."

    Other examples of food fraud have resulted in safety issues. In 2008, for example, distributors in China adulterated milk powder with a substance called melamine. The melamine made the milk appear to have the appropriate amount of protein, but in reality it only had about one-sixth of the protein infants need. It was also toxic.

    Poisoning babies is horrific, but feeding people horsemeat is still an example of food fraud. Food fraud, as defined by a 2011 Journal of Food Science paper called "Defining the Public Health threat of Food Fraud," is the intentional adulteration of food products for economic gain. It is not a new phenomenon. The paper says: "Food fraud has been conducted since antiquity; evidence has been found of counterfeit Roman seals on amphaorae containing fraudulent olive oil and wine."