Memorandum

To: Steve Williamson

From: Mr. Yella Milli, XYZ Consultants
Date: The 7th November, 1996
Subject:

Odwalla Inc.is an American health-conscious juice company that sells fruit juice, smoothies and food
bars. The vision is to provide natural, fresh and nutritious juice to the healthy segment of the juice
market.

The 1996 Odwalla E. coli outbreak began on October 7, 1996,

A 16-month-old girl died and 66 people fell sick.

On October 30, 1996, Health officials in Washington State informed the
company that they had discovered a link between several cases of E. coli
0157:H7 and Odwalla fresh apple juice. The link was confirmed on November
5.
Sales plummeted by 90%, Odwalla's stock price fell 34%.
Customers filed more than 20 personal-injury lawsuits and the company
looked as though it could well be destroyed.

The overwhelming feeling at the time of the crisis was that a community of ordinary
people was devastated at having created a product that had led to mass poisoning
and loss of life. The company's values spoke about nourishing people - when the
crisis came they adhered to this by accepting responsibility for their actions. This
helped get the company through the crisis.
There are critics who refused to credit the company with any integrity whatsoever but even they had to concede that this was an exercise in crisis management.

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