Capri Sun mold case shows Internet at its most viral
The glob a Florida woman found in her daughter’s Capri Sun juice pouch was not human tissue. It wasn’t a frog, a cow eyeball or anything else quite as gross. It was mold, formed after air got into a damaged package, and it wasn’t harmful, according to Kraft Foods Inc., maker of the drink.
The unpleasant finding by Melissa Wiegand Brown went viral after she posted photographs of the oval, skin-like mass on her Facebook page, representing the power of the Internet.
Reports of the monster mold spread via blogs and began to dominate Kraft’s Facebook page, where some posters expressed not just horror at the photos but also outrage at what they perceived to be the company’s slow response to the Memorial Day weekend issue.
So Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft reacted not with threats but by creating a special section of its Facebook page devoted to answering Capri Sun-related questions. The company also sent a courier to pick up a sample of the glob. Its own tests determined it was mold, which an independent laboratory confirmed, Kraft spokeswoman Bridget MacConnell said.
The incident, along with another recent tussle in which mommy bloggers accused Pampers’ new diaper design of causing serious baby rashes, illustrates the growing power of consumers in the digital age to take on corporate America, and the race by those companies to catch up.
“There are no more secrets, no more sneaking around, no more ‘Oh, they’ll never know,’ ” said Michael Cherenson, immediate past president of the Public Relations Society of America. “We’re all singing with the windows wide open now.”
Kraft has two employees monitoring the company’s Facebook page and participating in discussions.
Experts say the mommy bloggers are particularly powerful because they are close-knit and tend to pass on information to a widening circle of readers.
Beyond the bloggers, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, there also are the general complaint websites.
Last week, the Consumer Federation of America released a report about those sites, rating My3cents.com best but also recommending Complaints.com, ComplaintsBoard.com, ConsumerAffairs.com and RipoffReport.com.
However, the report found the sites have limited effectiveness as a place to vent. While they are good for sharing information and warnings, there was little evidence that posting gripes regularly resulted in companies’ responding to individual problems, it said.
Brown’s story about her Capri Sun glob blitzed across the Internet in a matter of days.
“I started posting pictures on my page for my friends to see, and then they were appalled and asked if they could post to their pages,” she said. “It just really ballooned from there. … It wasn’t my intention to go on Facebook and start something. This just sort of happened.”
She has rejected Kraft’s offer to reimburse her the $7 she spent on the drink packs. She wants a recall of Capri Sun, at least of the product lot from which her purchase came. Kraft said the damaged pouch was an isolated incident, and the mold formed because the drink does not contain preservatives.
Brown said she was awaiting her own laboratory test results, not taking Kraft’s word that the substance was mold. If her lab report conflicts with Kraft’s, Round 2 of the viral juice-pouch story will surely begin.
Karp writes for the Chicago Tribune.
Tribune reporter Wailin Wong contributed to this report.
