ANN ARBOR Mich. Trying to counter damage caused by a YouTube.com video of employees contaminating food at a franchised Domino's restaurant, the chain's USA president Patrick Doyle himself posted a video that tries to reassure consumers that the incident was isolated and is being taken seriously by the company.
View the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6AJ49xNSQ
“The independent owner of that store is reeling from the damage this has caused -- and it is not a surprise that this has caused a lot of damage to our brand,” Doyle says in the YouTube video that had more than 29,000 views within hours of its posting. “It sickens me that the actions of two individuals could impact our great system, where 125,000 men and women work for local business owners around the U.S. and more than 60 countries around the world.”
The video in question showed a male employee stuffing cheese in his nose before putting it on a sandwich, among other acts. While Domino’s initially tried to keep its response low key, to keep from contributing to excessive publicity, online chatter and media coverage helped push the number of views of the employees' video from about 20,000 to more than 700,000 between Tuesday and Wednesday. In addition to Doyle's video, Domino's also posted a statement about the damaging video on its website.
Doyle, in his YouTube video, says the company is re-examing its hiring practices to “make sure people like this do not make it into our stores.” He said the workers shown in the video have been fired and that warrants had been issued for their arrest.
The two employees claim that their acts were a hoax and that none of the contaminated food was actually served, but Doyle said Domino's nevertheless takes the incident “incredibly seriously."
According to Doyle, the franchised restaurant in Conover, N.C., was “shut down and sanitized from top to bottom,” as “there is nothing more important to us than our customers’ trust.” He went on to say that “auditors across the country are in our stores every day of the week making sure our stores are as clean as they can be and that we are delivering high-quality food to our customers day in and day out.”
Doyle said many people have offered messages of support to Domino's, and he concluded his video statement by saying, “We want to thank you for hanging in there with us as we work to regain your trust.”
The Ann Arbor-based Domino’s Pizza chain includes about 5,000 U.S. branches and another 3,700 overseas.
Contact Alan J. Liddle at [email protected].
