An Analysis of Crisis Public Relations Strategies for Food Safety in the New Media Era: The Haitian Soy Sauce Controversy as an Example

With the rapid development of new media, China's traditional media is facing new challenges, and enterprises are also facing greater crisis management pressure. 2022, China's Haitian Taste, a seasoning enterprise, was caught in a serious crisis because of the "food additives" issue, and its three public statements failed to solve the problem properly, which led to a huge loss for the enterprise. The purpose of this study was to analyze the reason for the failure of digital anti-crisis public relations due to the problem with Haitian Taste food additives in 2022. The authors adopt the case analysis method to conduct a horizontal analysis an example of the crisis PR practice of Haitian Taste. Accordingly, the authors discussed the reasons for the failure of digital anti-crisis public relations. A proposal was made on how to implement effective digital crisis management and digital public relations response, as well as other related strategies, in order to learn lessons for future enterprises. By analyzing the food additive crisis of Haitian Taste in 2022, we discuss the reasons for the failure of its crisis public relations, and at the same time propose how to carry out effective crisis management and public relations response and other related strategies, to provide lessons for future enterprises. This incident fully demonstrates that, in today's increasingly efficient information dissemination, enterprises must update their crisis response strategies, meet public needs promptly, and regain users' trust through openness and sincerity to minimize losses. In addition, food companies should improve crisis anticipation, pay attention to user ex-perience, and focus on food safety issues to cope with the increasing social norms. The data obtained by the authors can be useful not only for food industry enterprises, but also for all those involved in digital crisis management, marketing communications, and in particular, public relations.