Maker of ‘pink slime’ launches PR counter-offensive
There’s another side to every story, and the companies behind the recently reviled ‘pink slime’ meat hope you listen to their side, too.
A Lubbock, Texas-based Beef Products Inc. created a response website called beefisbeef.com to offer “truth and reality” to its product, which is unappetizingly being called “pink slime.”
The company also took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal defending its product and is relying on third-party experts to fight the campaign.
The beef product has been around for years, but this month social media became the host for parents outraged over the use of the ammonia-treated filler. Hundreds of thousands of people signed an online petition seeking its ban from schools. The U.S. Department of Agriculture relented and decided school districts may stop using it and supermarkets have pulled products with the filler.
Beef Products’ response campaign takes a page out of the new media world, and includes a helpful informational graphic on its site called “Get the Facts: What You Need to Know About Lean Beef Trimmings.”
Most notable in the graphic is the fact that other products in a typical hamburger contain ammonia, from the bun to the cheese to ketchup.
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