The fast-food industry is constantly changing. However, one thing that will not change is food safety. Because food safety is arguably the cornerstone of the fast food industry it must constantly remain a top priority. When companies fail to make food safety a priority, they lose the trust of their customers for years, or in some cases forever.

Building trust is one of the most effective ways to market. We all recall when Chipotle lost a lot of trusts when they failed to keep food safety as a top priority and suffered the infamous E Coli breakout. So how can you rebrand your company as trustworthy?

Act quickly. In the case of Chipotle, I do think that the outbreak could have been mitigated if the company had acted faster. After all the 55 people affected across 11 states is too high of a number to brush off as unpreventable. Now the company has made many changes to enhanced procedures and training, as well as spending up to $10 million to help local farms meet its food safety standards to make local ingredients available across the country. Of course, you can always have 20/20 hindsight but I think the company can represent the impact of foresight and the benefits of foreseeing a problem. Rebranding your company as trustworthy is effectively done by having a good vision for the future and taking action today to help achieve that vision.

Be genuine. One reason why Chipotle lost so much customer trust, disproportionate to other fast food carried illnesses in the past, is because they had branded themselves as being very fresh food conscious. Their brand positioning stressed “food with integrity. This incident caused consumers to question core value to associate with Chipotle. It’s unpleasant to find a wolf in sheep’s clothing and gives some explanation as to the sluggish recovery that Chipotle has taken their stock remains 42 percent lower than its levels pre-breakout last year. Build your companies trust by doing the things you say you are going to do. 

Be the best. High-resolution DNA-based testing is now done on many ingredients that Chipotle uses that far exceeds requirements of state and federal regulatory agencies, as well as industry standards. Whatever your company failed at becoming an industry leader; made considerable progress develop infrastructure. I think a great way for Chipotle to build trust would be to release a YouTube video of the shipment process of their food to market how much safer it is now. Communicating what improvements you have made to the customer builds trust.