Outbreak Update: How Restaurants Are Reassuring Customers About Lettuce

“We know you have questions about lettuce right now.” That’s how one Ohio restaurant chain recently opened an email to customers, introducing them to the greenhouse operation that supplies its salads. Rather than simply assuring diners its lettuce was safe, the restaurant described where the crop is grown, how it’s produced and why it remains confident serving it. The message is one example of how restaurants, retailers and other foodservice businesses are responding as the Cyclospora outbreak linked to shredded iceberg lettuce continues to make headlines.

While the approaches differ, several themes are beginning to emerge, offering growers an early look at how the marketplace communicates during a high-profile food safety event.

“We don’t use the implicated lettuce.”

The most common message has been straightforward: Our lettuce isn’t the one under investigation.

Several national restaurant chains have publicly emphasized that they either don’t serve shredded iceberg lettuce or source their greens from supply chains unrelated to the product FDA has traced to the outbreak.

Chipotle, for example, has said it uses romaine lettuce sourced from California rather than shredded iceberg lettuce from the implicated supply chain. Sweetgreen has likewise emphasized that it does not serve iceberg lettuce.

Rather than making broad food safety claims, these companies are drawing a clear distinction between their ingredients, and the product FDA continues to investigate.

“We’re removing lettuce out of caution.”

Other organizations have chosen a more precautionary approach. Some restaurants removed the implicated product as FDA’s traceback investigation progressed, while school districts in several states temporarily removed fresh lettuce or adjusted menus while monitoring the outbreak.

In many cases, those organizations stressed that the decisions were precautionary rather than responses to confirmed contamination within their own operations.
For growers, those actions illustrate how concern over one product can ripple through the broader fresh produce category.

“Here’s where our lettuce comes from.”

Some businesses are taking reassurance a step further by introducing customers to the farms supplying their lettuce.

The Ohio restaurant chain, Aladdin’s, recently emailed customers explaining that its salads are supplied by Fresh ‘n Crisp Farms, a greenhouse operation in Ohio. The message described the farm’s controlled growing environment, automated systems and local production, emphasizing that the restaurant knows exactly where its lettuce comes from.

Rather than focusing solely on what customers should avoid, the email focused on what the restaurant is serving — and why it has confidence in that supply chain.
For regional growers and local suppliers, that type of identity-based marketing may become increasingly valuable when consumers are looking for reassurance.

Greenhouse Production Becomes Part of the Message

The Aladdin’s example also reflects another emerging trend. Some greenhouse and hydroponic producers are highlighting enclosed production, treated irrigation water, limited human handling and controlled growing environments as points of differentiation during the outbreak.

That messaging stops short of suggesting field-grown lettuce is unsafe. Instead, it positions controlled-environment agriculture as one way to reduce certain food safety risks.

The strategy may already be translating into increased demand for some controlled-environment growers.

Renato Zardo, Director of Growing and co-owner of Great Lakes Growers in Burton, OH, says his greenhouse operation was already sold out before the outbreak began. Since then, demand has continued to climb.

“We were already sold out before this. Now we just saw our distributors asking for more and more products, and as well our curbside pickup went up,” Zardo says.
Whether that demand proves temporary or signals a longer-term shift remains unclear.

Research following previous produce-related food safety outbreaks suggests shoppers often change buying habits in the short term before gradually returning to familiar purchasing patterns. In other cases, however, outbreaks have permanently changed how products are marketed and how buyers evaluate suppliers.

Confidence, communicated differently

Not every company is taking the same approach. Some are distinguishing their supply chain from the implicated product. Others are removing lettuce temporarily. Still others are emphasizing local sourcing, transparency or greenhouse production.

Whether these messages prove to be short-lived crisis communications or the beginning of a broader shift in produce marketing remains to be seen.

For now, however, one thing is becoming clear: companies aren’t simply telling customers their lettuce is safe. Increasingly, they’re telling them whose lettuce it is, where it was grown and, in some cases, how it was produced.

For growers, those messages may offer an early indication of how consumer confidence is rebuilt after a major food safety event.