If this had been my product, I would have quickly sent retailers some stickers to put on the packs and asked them to shift the product to a higher shelf where the kids can't get them easily.
A confectionery company is dealing with a sticky situation after penis-shaped gummy lollies made their way into some of its packs, costing the company thousands of dollars in recalls....One out of every 20 or 30 bags would have one or two little gummy penises in them, he said.I'd bet that, had they stickered the packs and put them on the top shelf, they would have sold out quickly with buyers hoping to be the lucky one to find the prize inside. The stickers could have the picture of the offending gummi along with a note "Every 20th pack has a prize! Collect all the colours!"
The company had apologised to the customers and compensated them with free lollies.
Collecting up all the bags of lollies and dumping them at the tip had cost the company thousands of dollars, Van de Geest said.
So, Kirznerian alertness failure? Or, more likely, horror at potential outrage from parents hurting them in the longer term? I would have thought that the "top-shelf plus sticker" approach would have been enough to guard against parental backlash, but it isn't my money on the line.
