Key Takeaways
- Understand Regulatory Processes: Familiarize yourself with your state’s cannabis regulatory body’s recall procedures, including key contacts and requirements. This knowledge will facilitate smoother communication and preparation during a recall.
- Strengthen Industry Relationships: Build strong connections with retail partners, labs, and distributors to ensure coordinated and transparent recall processes. Collaborating on communication strategies enhances overall management and response effectiveness.
- Develop a Crisis Communication Plan: Create a comprehensive plan that outlines external communication steps, identifies designated spokespersons, and prepares statements for different scenarios (whether the brand is at fault or not). Regularly review and rehearse this plan to ensure readiness during a recall.
Is your cannabis brand prepared for a product recall? No one likes to talk about it, but it’s probably not a question of IF, but when. Anyone who has been around consumer products for any period can tell you: product recalls are a fact of life. But for cannabis brands, product recalls are intense because of the regulatory environment and the cost of operating as a cannabis brand. We recently handled crisis communications during a cannabis brand recall. It honored us to be chosen, but seeing the immeasurable stress a recall puts on a brand is never fun.
Because the cannabis industry is highly regulated, and in some locations, a medicinal-only product, cannabis recalls ARE news. A cannabis recall will get local and potentially national media coverage. So, how should cannabis companies prepare for the inevitable recall? In short, these 3 steps will help you tremendously: learn, lean, communicate.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand Regulatory Processes: It’s essential to familiarize yourself with your state’s cannabis regulatory body’s recall procedures. Knowing the process, key contacts, and requirements will help you prepare effectively and maintain smooth communication during a recall.
- Strengthen Industry Relationships: Build strong relationships with retail partners, labs, and distributors. Understanding their recall processes and collaborating on communication strategies will enhance coordination and transparency, crucial for effective recall management.
- Develop a Crisis Communication Plan: Create a comprehensive crisis communication plan that includes external communication steps, designated spokespersons, and prepared statements. This plan should address both scenarios where your processes are at fault and where they are not, ensuring you are ready to respond effectively to media coverage and public inquiries.
Learn the Product Recall Process From Your State Cannabis Regulatory Body
Because the cannabis industry is new, so are the regulatory bodies that oversee them. Keep in mind your cannabis regulation division may not even have staff members who have started a recall. Get ahead of it.
Ask your regulatory body what their process is for recall. Who will be your contact during a call? What will they need and expect from you? How and when will they inform you? What steps will they take to inform the public? What triggers a recall? Who will be audited in a recall (the brand, the testing facility, the retailer)?
Knowing the answers to these questions will help you prepare internally. Plus, having an open and engaging relationship with the regulatory body will ease communications during the recall itself.
Lean into Industry Relationships
Ask your retail partners what their internal product recall processes are. The more you know about how they handle and store products, how they prepare their budtenders for product recalls, the better off you’ll be. Find out if you can collaborate with them on budtender communication and customer notification. Be transparent with your retailers about your process too. You should do the same for any other 3rd party in the supply chain: labs and distributors as well. If your product includes any 3rd party ingredients, then communicate with them too. Tell them who they can contact about questions if they’re doing internal planning.
Create a Crisis Communication Plan
Based on how a cannabis recall happens, preparing your internal steps is critical because you can either take the lead or be pummeled. At the very least, define the first 3 external communication steps your brand will take the moment it knows of a potential or actual recall. You should have a single spokesperson identified, while your supporting cast should know their roles and how you will handle the situation internally.
Create plans for at least two scenarios: one for if your processes and/or procedures are at fault, and one plan for if your processes and procedures are not in question.
At the minimum, you should have a statement to your retailers drafted already, as well as a social media post, an email to customers, and a statement for your website. Your spokesperson should undergo crisis communication training, in front of a camera. You can also have a shortlist of local and industry media outlets you will proactively reach out to during the recall to provide a media statement. Be prepared to be nimble during your crisis process and consider what you might do if there is very little coverage vs. a lot of coverage. Review this plan annually, and make sure everyone knows their role during a cannabis product recall.
No one likes to talk about cannabis product recalls, but cannabis consumer PR can help. It sends a shiver down everyone’s back. But preparing for a cannabis recall with strategic cannabis PR helps take the sting out it. Contact us, we’re experts in cannabis PR firm if you need help creating a plan for a cannabis product recall.
