Nestle’ Waters is a global company devoting special qualitative efforts. Waters are sampled and controlled many millions of times per year (figure courtesy Nestle’ Waters)
Crisis management
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Introduction
In the following, by mean of a step-by-step sequence, we are going to suggest to:
- Food and Beverage Quality Control and Maintenance Staff, after having been informed about claims or complains by Customers or final Customers;
- final Customers who have reasons to believe they or, their familiars, are suffering (or, suffered) an illness or disease due to Food or Beverage contamination and want to file a claim for compensation;
what informations have immediately to collect. These informations are the base to establish what, where and when happened an Event, separating it by what, where and when did not happened. A distintion which, at first sight may seems academic, but that on the opposite is the core of whatever scientific or forensic investigation of the relation between causes and effects.
Millions of strict microbiologic controls made each one year by Nestle’ Waters (image courtesy Nestle’ Waters)
Key technical evidence
A final Customer believing to have suffered or be suffering an illness due to Food or Beverage contamination, may file a claim for compensation. One caveat in these types of cases concerns loss of the bottle whose content is suspected to have caused the illeness or disease. When a person is sick and hospitalized, until the idea of causative nexus with respect to a beverage starts to shape itself, the last thing whoever is thinking of is to preserve a bottle maybe drinked some days before. As a result, many cases of beverage contamination are compromised by the banal loss of key evidence. Legal claims involving Food and Beverages nearly always involve complex:
technical + legal + medical issues
It is also to counter the first component of the resulting complexity, strictly technical, that this web site exists.
The best way to operate is to prepare since the early start of the case, an ordered list of answers to each one of the following questions. When answering one-by-one them all, we’ll discover that for some we really have no idea about what to answer. Yet this ignorance, these missing informations can be an additional and useful information:
- a clue for subjects that Third Parties shall have to investigate to establish what happened;
- a record of what was not defined, at the time when you had notice of the case (Food and Beverage Staff) or, they started the symptoms (final Customer).
Important legal, factual and evidentiary matters that should be considered when evaluating a claim:
- Where was the suspect Food or Beverage consumed ?
- When was the suspect Food or Beverage consumed ?
- What Food or Beverage is thought by the Customer having caused him/her to get sick?
- What other Food and Beverages the Customer consumed along the 72 hours precedent before the onset of the symptoms ?
- Are samples of the Food or Beverage still available and properly preserved?
- Is consumption of the Food or Beverage associated with any known illnesses or diseases?
- Was there mixed to the Food or Beverage a foreign item (e.g. glass splinters, visible organic or inorganic residuals, etc.) into ?
- Was there a foreign chemical (e.g., gasoline, oil, caustic soda) or toxin in the Food or Beverage ?
- Was medical attention sought by the Customer, and was the doctor aware of possible Food and Beverage contamination ?
- In positive case, what are the name the medical doctor and address ?
- Was the infection, illness, or disease diagnosed by specific laboratory tests identifying the cause ?
- Was there a bacteria, virus, chemical or toxin identified ?
- What chemicals were added to or comprise (e.g. ingredients listed on the label) the Food or Beverage ?
- Have any other persons consumed the Food or drinked that Beverage ?
- What were the symptoms at the time of onset ?
- When was the time of onset ?
- Where was the Customer at the time the symptoms ?
- Did an outbreak of several people occur at a specific event or location ?
- Can a particular Food or Beverage be statistically identified ?
- At what point could the Food or Beverage have become contaminated ?
- In case of Food, is that Food naturally occurring ?
- In case of Food, is that Food man made ?
- Was the Food or Beverage properly processed ?
- Was the Food or Beverage properly stored ?
- Was the Food or Beverage properly prepared ?
- Was the Food or Beverage modified in any manner ?
- Were any chemicals added to the Food or Beverage item ?
- Was the Food or Beverage subject to a product recall or warning?
- Have any illnesses been reported due to chemical additives or components?
- Was the Food or Beverage imported from a source from outside your Country ?
- If so, was the product properly inspected by Customs ?
They’ll be typically necessary weeks or months before a spectrum of possible causes is established, with weighs specifying the most probable causes.
Free informational service
Complex legal, factual, and evidentiary issues may be involved in the case. At Graphene®, we recognize the unique issues pertaining to your case. Due to the extreme sensitivity of these subjects, you can call us at 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, everyday of the year. We offer a free informational service: you can contact us in the straightest way simply by mean of this web site page, by using the blue coloured SUPPORT tab in the middle right side of this page. We are committed to doing all of the extra things it takes necessary to help our Customers. To have free informations, You can also email us. Whatever the case and the way, we guarantee maximum confidentiality to your informations.
Milk-based dairy products, after pharmaceuticals, are the most risky (video credit FIX-DIGITAL, 2012)

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