QC, QA, Sensationalism, and “Seasoned Ground Beef”

Media wouldn’t know quality if it bit them in the burrito

The recent brouhaha involving a class-action suit against Taco Bell alleging that their beef filling is more filling than beef really got me thinking, but not about what’s in the tacos. Instead, it got me thinking about quality control, quality assurance, and particularly about customer satisfaction based on reasonable expectations. Because Taco Bell’s public image seems to have been hijacked by the media circus that sometimes passes as journalism, my thoughts focused mainly on the qualitative aspects of producing the world’s most famous taco.

I woke up at 3 a.m. and began an internal investigation of the basic tenets of the term quality—those tenets being quality control and quality assurance.

In the day-to-day business world, the term quality is sometimes thrown around like a rag doll without any real thought to its meaning.

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Comments

BEEF CONTENT

If you're paying less than a dollar for your tacos, I think it's safe to say there's a lot of stuff besides real beef in the meat portion. Consumers should wise up and the media should be less sensational and more factual. I enjoyed the article.

Labeling <> Quality?

"it isn't really about quality. It’s not about whether Taco Bell’s beef filling tastes good. It’s about (some) customers' expectations regarding labeling. Labeling. Not quality."

So labeling doesn't have anything to do with quality? I'd agree it does not have anything to do with the quality of the product contained insidxe the package which has the labeling on it. Well, that is. unless you think a claim for what you should expect is a characteristic of the product is irrelevant to what the product actually it.

Quality has a lot to do with perception, at least from a customer satisfaction perspective. So if you tell me a product has (or doesn't have) something in it and it turns out that isn't true, then I think it is fair to say that erroneous claim impacts quality.

Quality and Personal Requirements

"I really don’t care if it’s beef or BEAF™, it’s darn tasty and meets my requirements for quality."

Of course, regardless of what a label might say or what quality, measured by some other scale, a product does or does not possess, if it meets individual requirments that's "quality" for you. A producer may have no idea what any individual consumer's quality "standard" is (speaking of market-driven, not custom, products). If they use lower "quality" incredients, but you love the taste (which is your requirement), it has "quality" as far as you're concerned.

Your article may be a case of the old VW Bug vs Cadillac quality example. Or perhaps, since it is about food, another quality statementI have heard:

"The kitchen help in a fast food restaurant and the chef at a 4-star one are both involved in cooking. For the first, though, it's manufacturing; for the second, it's an art."

And which one has better "quality"? Sounds like it may depend.