There’s a Shrimp Tail in my Cereal — Crisis Assignment

Just recently, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal has come under fire when Twitter user Jensen Karp (@JensenKarp) posted a photo of his cereal. However, what came with it, were pieces of shrimp tail.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the sugar striped cereal, is owned by General Mills. This is not their first rodeo when it comes to shrimp in their products, according to an article put out by the New York Times. A similar event occurred in Michigan in 2011 where a consumer found pieces of shrimp in their blueberry scone package.

General Mills is known for owning multiple cereal brands. Some of the other well-known breakfast cereals include (but are not limited to): Chex, Cheerios, Trix, Golden Flakes, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, and more.

Captain Crunch, so far, has released a statement on Twitter:

Jensen Karp, the man who found the shrimp tail in his cereal, released a statement to NY Times earlier and is quoted saying, “I’m not considering legal action. Obviously, if I ate rat poop, we’re gonna have to readdress that.”

After diving deeper into Jensen’s page, it turns out that General Mill’s emailed Jensen that if he was unwilling to send back the packaging, he would need to turn it into local law enforcement. They then followed up saying that this may have been a case of product tampering.

Just like in any crisis management situation, the tweets came rolling in. Here are some funny ones I enjoyed.

For this assignment, I did not include all the screenshots given how many there were, but it’s safe to say that not only did Cinnamon Toast Crunch do a horrible job responding to this disgusting issue, but they gaslit a customer. They also claimed to have messaged Jensen first, but according to screenshots, Jensen reached out to them first. CTC also claimed to have left a voicemail message on Jensen’s phone for information regarding an envelope they were supposed to send (to gather evidence) — but that also did not happen. Instead, it was a seven-second voicemail that was entirely silent.

Jensen provided a ton of information and shared screenshots of the conversations with the well-known cereal brand’s Twitter page. Going forward, CTC could have handled this much better. For one, they shouldn’t have gas-lit their customer. I also wouldn’t have suggested sending another box of the cereal that allegedly had been found to have contained shrimp tails in the box.