Cargill Recalls 36M lbs of Ground Turkey with a Simple Press Release, Vague Website Announcement

At a time of crisis, Cargill believes that it's better to focus on positive things like palm oil and Egyptian soy.

While most of the world is focused on Cargill's massive nationwide recall – which includes 36 million pounds of ground turkey – Cargill.com is touting the company's commitment to RSPO certified sustainable palm oil. Upon clicking through each of the six slider images, I discovered that Cargill has opened an innovation center. I learned that the company builds custom natural gas strategies for its customers. I also found out about the firm's Latin American expansion, and its effort to introduce a soybean farm in Nile Delta, Egypt.

Only after skimming the four smaller images on the bottom of the site – which are about 1/12 the size of the slider images – did I find a story about the company's recall.

Inside the press release, Cargill details every package of meat impacted by the recall, but not before attempting to stifle the severity of the problem:

“While facts continue to be gathered, and currently there is no conclusive answer regarding the source of Salmonella Heidelberg contamination, given our concern for what has happened, and our desire to do what is right for our consumers and customers, we are voluntarily removing our ground turkey products from the marketplace,” said Steve Willardsen, president of Cargill's turkey processing business.

Really, Cargill? This recall is voluntary? So you're telling me that it took one death and more than 76 reported illnesses before you “voluntarily” decided to recall your ground turkey? If you're so proud of this effort to protect our safety, why is the website notice so tiny and vague? Why is it not the first thing people see when they come to your website?

Maybe it's because Cargill would rather talk about soybeans instead of the second-biggest meat recall in U.S. history.

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