Media Myth: Nine Worst Business Stories
(of the Last 50 Years)

9. Food Lion Accused of Repackaging Meat
 

     The ensuing report aired undercover footage of Food Lion workers repackaging old meat and other perishables with new expiration dates.

     Food Lion was at the time the fastest growing grocery store chain in the nation, having implemented a revolutionary business model based on wholesale purchasing and distribution to its stores. But Sawyer accused the company of being so driven by profits that it neglected health concerns in order to sell tainted meat.

     The report didn’t note that state inspection records gave Food Lion average sanitation marks, according to a Nov. 30, 1992, Washington Post report by media critic Howard Kurtz, who questioned the use of undercover cameras.

     Amidst numerous lawsuits filed against ABC over the report, Food Lion alleged that footage was manipulated, staged and not representative of normal business practices at the stores. In reviewing the 45 hours of videotape taken during the investigation, Food Lion representatives said the report “was not supported – indeed, was contradicted – by the footage it had,” an Aug. 30, 1995, Washington Post article said.

     As the Media Research Center reported at the time – based on a report in The New Republic – the 45 hours of hidden camera footage showed “a combination of staged events and selective editing to fit a pre-conceived story line and systematically fabricate a story to deceive the public.”

     It turned out that the report was part of an intense union-backed campaign to discredit the non-unionized chain. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union put ABC in touch with many of its sources for the report and helped producers secure jobs at Food Lion stores by providing references. 

     The Los Angeles Times reported on earlier UFCW tactics against Food Lion in September 1992, when the union accused Food Lion of child labor and overtime pay abuses, which resulted in a $16.2-million penalty levied against the chain by the Department of Labor.

     The union tried another approach in 1994, when in February of that year The Washington Post wrote about a report accusing the company of selling expired baby food.

     In her introduction, Sawyer insisted that Food Lion workers were “hard-working people who care about their jobs, but what this report will show is the kind of thing that can happen when the pressure for profit is great and you break the rules.” Despite Sawyer’s note of appreciation for individual employees, the workers were the ones who suffered in the story’s fallout.

     The chain announced plans to close 88 unprofitable stores and open 40 to 50, amounting to a loss of at least 33 stores in the two years after the report, according to the April 19, 1994, Wall Street Journal. Food Lion had opened as many as 100 new stories in previous years.

     Food Lion reported a 55-percent drop in fourth-quarter profit after the report aired, according to the March 1, 1993, Washington Post. The company’s stock lost almost half its value, and revenues fell 2.6 percent in 1993.

     In 1996, a federal grand jury in Greensboro, N.C., found ABC guilty of trespassing and fraud for the report. The case didn’t hinge on the journalistic merits of undercover reporting, but on the fraud used by producers to obtain jobs and the illegal taping inside stores without the company’s permission. Food Lion was awarded $5.5 million, but the verdict was eventually overturned.

     ABC stuck by its story. Even though Food Lion challenged the veracity of the claims made in the report, ABC News President Roone Arledge in 1997 maintained that “the fact of the matter is the broadcast was true.”

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