Mexican Food Firm Works to Undo Effect of False Report : Juanita’s Victimized by Finger-in-Menudo Scare

For years, George De La Torre had struggled to turn the small fish-canning business his father had helped found into a successful Mexican food firm, Juanita’s Foods.

Then the grisly news broke: A two-inch piece of human finger and fingernail had been discovered in a can of his company’s menudo --a Mexican stew--by a San Gabriel Valley family.

In truth, there was no finger or fingernail in the menudo. Federal food inspectors determined that the object found by the family was actually connective tissue normally found in tripe, a beef byproduct that is a main ingredient of menudo.

But before the Wilmington-based company was cleared several days later, news of the reported find had traveled across the country and even to South America. Radio commentator Paul Harvey went so far as to tell his nationwide audience--erroneously--that the company’s products had been pulled from all Southern California grocery shelves. De La Torre was besieged with calls from worried customers.

Confidence-Building Steps

Now, De La Torre, general manager of the 40-year-old company, is trying to restore public confidence in his company’s products, especially its canned menudo, a traditional Mexican dish that accounts for the lion’s share of the company’s business.

To do so, he has hired a public relations firm that specializes in “crisis consultations,” and Juanita’s also plans a major advertising campaign.

Reports of product tampering have enormous impact on companies and frequently require large-scale campaigns to counteract the damage. It is particularly important for small companies to take such steps quickly, one consultant said, because most do not have the financial strength to absorb large losses.

Indeed, De La Torre estimates that the company, which employs about 75 people and had gross sales of about $13 million last year, could lose millions of dollars before the incident fades from public memory. Already, he says, sales of the company’s menudo have dropped 50% to 80% at three Southern California supermarket chains.

Hospital’s Advice Cited

And the damage could have been avoided, he asserted, if some news media had been more careful in reporting the story, especially the family’s assertion to the initial police investigators that a pathologist at Glendora Community Hospital had identified the tissue as a human finger. A hospital spokesman said that a member of the emergency room staff had advised the family to take the object to the police, but that no hospital official had ventured an opinion about what the object was.

Azusa police, who looked into the case as possible food tampering, say they have now ended their investigation; De La Torre says his company is trying to determine if it was the victim of a hoax.

Phillip Ureno, whose brother, Freddie, initially reported the find to police, declined to comment on the matter in a telephone interview except to say, “We did what we thought was right.”

Azusa Police Sgt. Ken MacChesney said the family has not changed its initial story even though the police investigation has determined that--despite the family’s claim--no one at Glendora Community Hospital had identified the object as a finger.

‘Not Changing Story’

“In talking to them, they honestly believe that what they saw was a finger, and they are not changing their story one bit,” he said.

MacChesney said police were first contacted by Freddie Ureno on the evening of Jan. 2, a Friday. The 30-year-old Ureno, a laborer, told police that he, brother Phillip and their wives had sat down for dinner and were eating the canned menudo when they discovered what appeared to be a piece of a human finger with a fingernail on it.

The family told police that they dumped the uneaten portion of the menudo in their backyard and then washed off the tissue, according to MacChesney. They

told police that they went to Glendora Community Hospital and that a pathologist there confirmed that the object was a finger. The family said they called the police after returning from the hospital.

Police took the specimen from the family and turned it over to federal food inspectors on Monday, Jan. 5. About that time, the manager of the Lucky supermarket in Azusa, where the family told police they had purchased the menudo, pulled the product from the shelves.

Cans Removed, Returned

A Lucky spokeswoman said the product was pulled after the store manager was informed by police of the incident, but no other stores removed the canned menudo. The product was put back on the store’s shelves three or four days later after federal inspectors determined that the object from the can was not a finger, the spokeswoman said.

De La Torre said he first heard about the incident as he got ready for work Monday, three days after the Urenos contacted police. A friend telephoned him and said a radio station was reporting that a family had found what they thought was a human finger in a can of Juanita’s menudo.

“I thought to myself, ‘This is a tough practical joke to start the new year with,’ ” De La Torre said.

By 9 a.m. Monday, De La Torre went on, the company was receiving telephone calls from the food brokers that sell its products in Phoenix and El Paso. The same day, radio commentator Harvey, in a one-sentence report, told his audience that Juanita’s menudo was “being removed from grocery store shelves in Southern California since Freddie Ureno found part of a human finger in his.”

Interest in Miami, Alaska

On Tuesday, a wire service reporter called from Miami to check the story. “We even had a call from a person who has a small chain of markets in Alaska, who said, ‘Hey, I hear you guys are having a recall. Is it true because I was planning to run your stuff on special next weekend and I got to know . . . whether or not I’m going to have the stuff on my shelves,’ ” De La Torre recounted.

He said the company had no records of a major accident occurring at the plant and added that workers who cut up the tripe before it is canned wear wire mesh gloves that their knives cannot penetrate.

Some news organizations--including The Times, Associated Press and television station KCBS--did not carry stories on the incident. KNBC did not run an initial report but carried a brief item after it was determined that the object was not a finger.

De La Torre believes that the news media that reported the purported finger discovery were “too quick to run with a sensationalist story” and did not probe the Urenos about their statement that a pathologist had identified the specimen as a finger.

“If initially the reporters had just said, ‘Show us the documentation’ and not taken this person’s word for it,” De La Torre said. “Anybody can make an accusation about anything to anybody.”

From Local Paper

United Press International reporter Luther Whitington, who wrote the first story on the incident for the news service, said he read an account of it in a Sunday edition of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. That paper had published a short story based on the police report, noting that an object had been found in Juanita’s brand menudo; a police official told the paper that the hospital had confirmed that the object was a human finger.

That night, Whitington said, he telephoned the Azusa police and was told by Lt. Mike Skogh of the family’s contention that a pathologist at Foothill Presbyterian Hospital, not Glendora Community, had confirmed that the object was a finger.

Before writing his story, Whitington said he telephoned the hospital, but was told he would have to call back because the people on duty when the Urenos reportedly had been at the hospital were not there.

MacChesney of the Azusa police said he does not know why Whitington was told that Foothill Presbyterian was involved when the police report clearly says Glendora Community Hospital. “Apparently, there was a miscommunication somewhere,” he said.

Whitington, whose wire service transmitted the story to its clients nationally and in South America, said that although he and others at the news service were wary of the story, UPI decided to run it after Lt. Skogh said he had seen the object and it appeared to him to be a human finger.

No ‘Negligence, Recklessness’

UPI regional editor Jacques Clafin said he saw “no evidence that we in any way treated the subject with negligence or recklessness.”

Leticia Castillo, a researcher and field producer for KTTV-Channel 11 news, said the station dispatched a crew with a reporter to the Urenos’ home on Jan. 5, after the station received a call from Phillip Ureno. That night, the station ran a 34-second piece on its 8 p.m. newscast with the lead: “Federal inspectors are trying to find out tonight how two inches of a human finger got into a can of Juanita brand menudo, a popular Mexican stew made with tripe.”

The report said the family took the object to a hospital, where it was confirmed to be part of a human finger. Castillo said police told her that the family claimed a hospital had confirmed that it was a finger, but police themselves had not confirmed the report. She said she did not check further.

“I merely got the information,” Castillo said. “I didn’t bother like I should have to call the hospital, and the reporter didn’t either. We’re guilty.”

U.S. Findings Reported

Whitington said the wire service ran follow-up stories, including the USDA’s findings that declared there was no finger in the menudo. Channel 11 broadcast a 20-second report on Friday Jan. 9, after the company held a news conference to announce the federal food inspectors’ findings. The follow-up ran on the station’s midnight newscast, not at 8 p.m. as did the original report, she said.

On Jan. 22, Paul Harvey ran a correction of his initial report. “It is impossible to un-ring a bell,” Harvey told his listeners, “but the Department of Agriculture gave Juanita brand products a completely clean bill of health.”

De La Torre says that the incident comes as the company--which stopped canning fish in 1969--has prospered. Besides menudo, which accounted for 80% of sales last year, Juanita’s Foods processes a Mexican-style hominy, meatball soup and hot sauce under the Juanita label, and a hot sauce and menudo under the Pico Pica label.

Since it moved into a new plant about four years ago, the company has doubled its work force and almost tripled its sales, he said. The company is still wholly owned by the families of De La Torre and his father’s original partner, Albert Guerrero.

Large Losses Predicted

Although De La Torre says it is impossible for the company to determine how the incident has harmed Juanita’s Foods, he expects to lose between $1 million and $3 million in sales because of the negative publicity. In a recent seven-day period, he said, sales of the menudo were off 50% to 80% at Safeway, Albertson’s and Lucky stores in Southern California, compared to the same period last year.

“We’ve got to face facts,” De La Torre said. “We are not a Campbell’s; we are not a Hunt’s or a Del Monte. We’re just a family-owned operation, and to have something like this take place and break over the national news services can have horrendous effects on us.”

Fredrick Koenig, a professor of social psychology at Tulane University in New Orleans, who has acted as a consultant to firms affected by negative publicity, said reports that a company’s products are contaminated can cause people to “recoil.” And unlike larger corporations, smaller companies must act faster to dispel a false report because they do not have the resources to absorb the losses.

“They have to act immediately to try to discredit it and put forward a positive campaign,” Koenig said.

Videotapes Circulated

To do that, Juanita’s Foods has hired Hermosillo & Associates, a West Covina-based public relations firm that specializes in “crisis consultations.” Among its strategies has been to send videotapes of De La Torre’s press conference to news executives, requesting follow-up stories if they had run the original account, according to Xavier Hermosillo, who heads the firm.

“The aftershocks are never as strong as the original quake,” said Hermosillo, referring to the follow-ups. “What we have to do is produce a series of aftershocks” to ensure that the correct information gets out.”

The company also is formulating an advertising strategy to bolster its image. Within the next month, according to De La Torre, it plans to spend $100,000--a third of its annual advertising budget--for commercial space on local Spanish-language radio and television stations.

“Nobody has been killed, and no one has been poisoned; but for us this has been an economic crime,” De La Torre said.