Talk:Conagra Brands/Archive 5

Archive 1

←

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Product incidents request 2

Hi editors, for my next request in the Product incidents section, I'd like to request a significant trim to the 2007 Salmonella outbreak section. The current section contains more detail than I think is warranted per WP:NOTEVERYTHING,WP:TMI, and WP:DUE, particularly related to package numbers and the decisions leading to the formal recall. I think it's most relevant to readers to focus on the final result of the outbreak rather than including day by day updates.

There are also issues of WP:CRYSTALBALL ("would be changed") and accuracy (e.g. The entire plant was not shut down, just the pot pie production line, and the source doesn't state that the plant was closed in the body, just the headline, which isn't a reliable source per WP:HEADLINES). It also relies on the CDC as a source, which isn't secondary.

So I propose changing the text of the section from:

Extended content

On October 11, 2007, Conagra asked stores to pull the Banquet and generic brand chicken and turkey pot pies due to 152 cases of Salmonella poisoning in 31 states being linked to the consumption of Conagra pot pies, with 20 people hospitalized. At that time, both the USDA and Conagra decided in favor of a consumer advisory and against a recall. ConAgra said the issue stemmed from pies not being cooked thoroughly in older microwaves, and that the package's heating instructions would be changed to reflect different microwaves. However, the plant in Marshall, Missouri, where the pot pies were manufactured closed on October 11 as well. By October 12, a full recall was announced, affecting all varieties of frozen pot pies sold under the brands Banquet, Albertson's, Food Lion, Great Value, Hill Country Fare, Kirkwood, Kroger, Meijer, and Western Family. The recalled pot pies included all varieties in 7-oz. single-serving packages bearing the number P-9 or "Est. 1059" printed on the side of the package. By October 14, 174 cases of Salmonella poisoning in 32 states were linked to consumption of the contaminated ConAgra pot pies, with 33 people hospitalized. Public interest groups criticized Conagra for the delay in issuing the recall, a decision which Conagra defended by saying the recall was a precaution. At the time of the recall, the USDA had still not identified the source of the Salmonella contamination. On October 17, the Colorado Department of Public Health reported that "An investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health departments involved a large cluster of illnesses caused by Salmonella that identified these products" and stated that, "Nationally, at least 211 individuals from 35 states have become ill." From January 1 through December 31, 2007, the CDC identified a total of 401 cases in 41 states.

To

Extended content

In 2007, ConAgra and United States Department of Agriculture issued a consumer advisory related to the company's frozen turkey pot pies after regulators tied the pie to more than 150 cases of salmonella in the U.S. ConAgra offered refunds to consumers and encouraged stores to pull the pies from their shelves. In October 2007, the company issued a formal recall of all pot pies made between 2005 and 2007.

References

Please let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 15:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The CDC is a high quality source; our guidelines including MEDRS (see WP:MEDSCI) use it, and it is held in higher regard than secondary newspaper sources for health information. As such we should keep the "CDC identified a total of 401 cases in 41 states" phrase. Dialectric (talk) 20:24, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The current section contains more detail than I think is warranted per WP:NOTEVERYTHING,WP:TMI, and WP:DUE, particularly related to package numbers and the decisions leading to the formal recall Regardless of your use of the word "particularly" here, this is not very descriptive of which claims you're talking about. These are blanket reasons. Let's tie these blankets to specific beds, so to speak, by attaching them to specific verbatim instances in the text. That would be enormously helpful here. Please advise. Thank you! Regards,  Spintendo  23:20, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Dialectric: Appreciate the feedback! I'll incorporate that CDC information into an updated text suggestion.

@Spintendo: Happy to provide more specifics! I'll do it in a table, hopefully that will be easier to parse. I think WP:DUE generally applies to the day-by-day treatment the outbreak receives in the article, so I'll focus more on the other policies/guidelines.

Proposed 2007 Salmonella outbreak changes

Text as it appears now in the 2007 Salmonella outbreak section	Proposed change	Responding comments
On October 11, 2007, Conagra asked stores to pull the Banquet and generic brand chicken and turkey pot pies due to 152 cases of Salmonella poisoning in 31 states being linked to the consumption of Conagra pot pies, with 20 people hospitalized.	Remove, as this is WP:TMI and WP:NOTEVERYTHING. In this case, this isn't a "summary of accepted knowledge" but a play-by-play of events.	Reply 16-NOV-2023 There is one issue being described: the pot pie salmonella outbreak. However, as the company made two different responses to the outbreak, their actions spurred two different events. The first event was the October 11, 2007 Conagra "health alert". That is what is being discussed in this row.  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
At that time, both the USDA and Conagra decided in favor of a consumer advisory and against a recall. ConAgra said the issue stemmed from pies not being cooked thoroughly in older microwaves, and that the package's heating instructions would be changed to reflect different microwaves.	As above. This is also an instance of WP:CRYSTALBALL with the "would be changed" phrasing. This reference would also be culled, as more up-to-date references are available.	Reply 16-NOV-2023 This could be reworded to "the package's heating instructions were changed to reflect different microwaves"  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
However, the plant in Marshall, Missouri, where the pot pies were manufactured closed on October 11 as well.	Remove, as this is also WP:TMI. It's also not accurate. Only the headline says the plant was closed, the article body doesn't (it says production was stopped), and other sources note that it was just the pot pie production line, not the whole plant. Also of note, the Arkansas newspaper reference is updated to be more complete in my proposed text below.	Reply 16-NOV-2023 Should be changed to "However, the plant in Marshall, Missouri, where the pot pies were manufactured saw the pot pie's production line closed down on October 11 as well.  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
By October 12, a full recall was announced, affecting all varieties of frozen pot pies sold under the brands Banquet, Albertson's, Food Lion, Great Value, Hill Country Fare, Kirkwood, Kroger, Meijer, and Western Family. The recalled pot pies included all varieties in 7-oz. single-serving packages bearing the number P-9 or "Est. 1059" printed on the side of the package.	Remove, as this is an excessive amount of detail. The specifics of the package labels don't strike me as meeting WP:NOTEVERYTHING, nor does the listing of the brands. Also of note, the proposed text below updates this reference to be more complete.	Reply 16-NOV-2023 Through its differentiated actions in response to a singular issue, Conagra compartmentalized the pot pie salmonella outbreak into different events. The "health alert" on the 11th was the first event. This row is discussing the second event, which was the recall. Because health alerts do not carry the legal weight of a recall, these should be identified as seperate announcements/actions/events made by, and announced from, the company.  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
By October 14, 174 cases of Salmonella poisoning in 32 states were linked to consumption of the contaminated ConAgra pot pies, with 33 people hospitalized. Public interest groups criticized Conagra for the delay in issuing the recall, a decision which Conagra defended by saying the recall was a precaution. At the time of the recall, the USDA had still not identified the source of the Salmonella contamination.	This is another instance of play-by-play of an event that has concluded. It's too much detail and a case of WP:TMI and WP:NOTEVERYTHING.This reference would also be removed.	Reply 16-NOV-2023 Conagra's differentiated responses then came under public scrutiny, which is allowable to mention in the article as long as the references are clear/acceptable. That is what this row is discussing.  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
On October 17, the Colorado Department of Public Health reported that "An investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health departments involved a large cluster of illnesses caused by Salmonella that identified these products" and stated that, "Nationally, at least 211 individuals from 35 states have become ill."	Remove, as this is unsourced and another instance of TMI/play-by-play.	Reply 16-NOV-2023 On October 17, the Colorado Department of Public Health reported that "An investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health departments involved a large cluster of illnesses caused by Salmonella that identified these products This is not grammatical. It's unknown if the error in grammar was original to the article or introduced on the talk page.  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
From January 1 through December 31, 2007, the CDC identified a total of 401 cases in 41 states.	I think this just needs some slight rephrasing after Dialectric's note above. I incorporated that into the language request below. I also updated the reference.	Reply 16-NOV-2023 The reason given here is rephrasing, but the details are not clear.  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

References

Overall, the problem I see with the section is that it doesn't summarize events when summaries are available. It's a play-by-play of each day of the outbreak that places undue weight on it. Here's what I would propose changing the section to after the feedback I've received:

Extended content

In 2007, ConAgra and the United States Department of Agriculture issued a consumer advisory related to the company's frozen pot pies after regulators tied the pies to cases of salmonella in the U.S. ConAgra offered refunds to consumers and encouraged stores to pull the pies from their shelves. In October 2007, the company issued a formal recall of all pot pies made between 2005 and 2007. In total, the Centers for Disease Control identified 401 cases of salmonella in 41 states tied to the outbreak, resulting in 108 hospitalizations. References

Please let me know what you think. Happy to answer any further questions. RWConagra (talk) 17:40, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I've placed my comments in the table above, in a new 3rd column. Regards,  Spintendo  03:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Reply to Spintendo

@Spintendo: I see your responses and I think that we may be talking around each other a bit. Ultimately, the question I'm asking of this section is Is this content being treated with due weight?. Trying to look at the individual sentences and their merit isn't valuable if the section as a whole isn't treating the event with due weight.

This outbreak was an evolving situation. You say that it is multiple events, but it isn't treated that way by the CDC and it isn't multiple outbreaks, it's all the same one (CDC report: "An outbreak case was defined as infection with a Salmonella strain with the specific outbreak PFGE pattern and illness onset during January 1--December 31, 2007."). A blow-by-blow recap of the response to the outbreak and its outcome seems to me like it doesn't meet WP:DUE or WP:BALASP in an article about the company as a whole. I think I could argue as well that WP:RECENTISM played a part in the creation of the content. This content was largely added while events were unfolding, and hasn't been updated in any significant way in 16 years.

That said, I can certainly understand and could support retaining the criticism from public interest groups. With that in mind, I'd to suggest replacing the current section with this:

Extended content

On October 9, 2007, ConAgra and the United States Department of Agriculture issued a consumer advisory related to the company's frozen pot pies after regulators tied the pies to cases of salmonella in the U.S. ConAgra offered refunds to consumers and encouraged stores to pull the pies from their shelves. Two days later, the company issued a formal recall of all pot pies made between 2005 and 2007. Consumer advocates criticized delaying the formal recall, and the company called the recall a "precaution" while the investigation into the outbreak was ongoing. In total, the Centers for Disease Control identified 401 cases of salmonella in 41 states tied to the outbreak, resulting in 108 hospitalizations. References

This corrects the dates, which are incorrect, re-adds a sentence related to the criticism from consumer advocates, and otherwise condenses the text down to a level that seems to me to be more balanced and an appropriate amount of weight given current information. Please let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 20:24, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The dates being off by 48 hours is a minor issue. That the incidents occurred in October 2007, and are labeled as such, should be sufficient. Regards,  Spintendo  04:34, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Company overview request

Hi editors, I had a request to add a short section related to operations, titled Company overview, similar to sections I've seen in other company articles. I think the best place for it would be right before the Products section.

As for the text, I was thinking something like this:

Extended content

As of 2023, Conagra had 38 manufacturing facilities in the United States and employed approximately 18,600 people. It had net sales of $12.27 billion in fiscal year 2023. The company is a member of the Fortune 500. It is led by president and chief executive officer Sean M. Connolly. References Note: The 10-K is already cited in the article, so to get page numbers for the facts to render without doubling up the citation, this should do the trick: {{r|"10-K"|p=3, 17, 36}}

Please let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 21:31, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

 Declined I think the best place for it would be right before the Products section. That would place this information in the relocation section, which doesn't seem right. add a short section related to operations, titled Company overview but there is no comprehensive "Company information" to overview after that point, so that placement does not seem right either. Regards,  Spintendo  04:34, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

@Spintendo: I think there is some confusion here. I'm asking for a brand new section named Company overview with all new content to be added to the article. I suggest this new section be placed between the History and Products sections.

Extended content

Company overview As of 2023, Conagra had 38 manufacturing facilities in the United States and employed approximately 18,600 people. It had net sales of $12.27 billion in fiscal year 2023. The company is a member of the Fortune 500. It is led by president and chief executive officer Sean M. Connolly. References Note: The 10-K is already cited in the article, so to get page numbers for the facts to render without doubling up the citation, this should do the trick: {{r|"10-K"|p=3, 17, 36}}

I hope this clarifies it! Let me know if you have any questions. RWConagra (talk) 22:06, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Reply 11-DEC-2023

I apologize, as you can see my confusion is understandable. The word "overview" would make sense as the level 2 heading at the beginning of additional level 3 subheadings each talking about different aspects of the company, resembling something like this:

• Company overview
  • Company aspect 1
  • Company aspect 2
  • Company aspect 3

I'm afraid this overview is odd coming at this point in the article (while containing only two sentences). Ultimately it does not provide additional clarity to the article. Regards,  Spintendo  04:39, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Spintendo: I think I am a bit confused now. The vast majority of company articles have sections on their operations, usually related to leadership, distribution/manufacturing, and varying amounts of financial information (Starbucks, Unilever, and Nestlé) are all good examples from a basic search). If the heading "Company overview" is not to your liking, would you consider "Operations"? I think the following information is extremely relevant to understanding the Conagra Brands of today.

Extended content

As of 2023, Conagra had 38 manufacturing facilities in the United States and employed approximately 18,600 people. It had net sales of $12.27 billion in fiscal year 2023. The company is a member of the Fortune 500 and is headquartered in Chicago. It is led by president and chief executive officer Sean M. Connolly. References Note: The 10-K is already cited in the article, so to get page numbers for the facts to render without doubling up the citation, this should do the trick: {{r|"10-K"|p=3, 17, 36}}

Please let me know what you think. RWConagra (talk) 21:59, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

 Comment: I think the information and refs are good but some of it does already appear to be in the article's lead section, perhaps the info could be reworked into existing sections if any of it isn't already there? Lewcm Talk to me! 10:26, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Lewcm: It's my understanding that article introductions should summarize the topic. According to the Manual of style, an intro should "stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic" and "apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." Adding an Operations section felt appropriate to me given the mandate to also discuss things in the article body, however, if you think it would be better to simply tack this information onto the introduction or at the very end of the History section, I would be fine with that. Let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 21:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

The vast majority of company articles have sections on their operations Without examples, there's not much to do here. If you could provide some of those articles, I could take a look and perhaps see what you're tying to get at here. Please advise. Regards,  Spintendo  03:58, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

@Spintendo:, ah, apologies if the examples didn't stick out in my first response. I've collected those here and also added a few more examples beyond what I originally posted. These sections are all versions of the same thing, even if they have different headings.

Examples include:

Extended content
Starbucks Unilever Nestlé Berkshire Hathaway Louis Vuitton Samsung Ford Motor Company (also see Operations section here) PepsiCo Nintendo Toyota Sony Home Depot Gucci Burger King American Airlines

These sections are often even more substantial than what I've proposed, but in an effort to keep to the best possible sourcing and avoid including too much information per WP:NOTEVERYTHING, I've trimmed things down for my proposal. Let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 17:55, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

At Starbucks, that section is at the beginning of the article. Unilever has 5 subsections justifying its inclusion, Nestle and BH have 4, Toyota has 5, Samsung has 6, Ford has (as you noted) seemingly 2 "overview" sections with a secondary "operations" section, Pepsico also has a superfluous operations section which contains, for some reason, a philanthropy subsection. Nintendo doesn't appear to have a "corporate overview" section, while Sony, Burger King, AA and Home Depot also don't have "overview" sections. The only ones that appear to have a corporate structure section of comparable size to the one you're requesting are Gucci and LVMH, but neither of those are labeled "Corporate overview". I think we first have to decide what this section is. Is it an overview section, or is it an operations section. Many of these articles blur that line, which is not helpful. Complicating the matter is that WP:CPYG does not include anything like an overview section in its guidelines on suggested article section organization, so these articles are unfortunately left in the wilderness on these questions, leading to each being developed independently with only a residue of commonality left between them. Regards,  Spintendo  01:42, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Reply 2-JAN-2024

@Spintendo: I think the heading works either way whether it is "Company overview" or "Operations", but for the sake of simplicity let's call it Operations. What I've proposed contains many operational details so I think that works.

My main reason for proposing this is because this information is otherwise hanging out in the infobox and introduction without otherwise being in the article, which based on my reading of the Manual of Style, shouldn't be the case. The MOS says "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article."

However, I also recognized that this is fairly basic information. Perhaps it would be best suited to update the introduction with it and move on. I'm open to either idea. Please let me know what you think. RWConagra (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Geardona (talk to me?) 17:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@Geardona: thanks for your response! Unfortunately I can't present the request in the format you're asking for because there isn't content being changed, rather this is brand new content. My requested addition is to make an Operations section with the following text. I leave it to editors to decide where exactly that section should go, but my suggestion would be after the History section:

Extended content
As of 2023, Conagra had 38 manufacturing facilities in the United States and employed approximately 18,600 people. It had net sales of $12.27 billion in fiscal year 2023. The company is a member of the Fortune 500 and is headquartered in Chicago. It is led by president and chief executive officer Sean M. Connolly. References

Let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 22:06, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

2016-present history request

Hi editors, I had a request for the 2016-present section while my last request is being mulled over by Geardona. I propose the first sentence of the 2016-present section be changed from:

• On October 1, 2015, ConAgra announced that it would cut about 1,500 jobs and relocate its headquarters to Chicago as part of a restructuring plan. The move of headquarters from Omaha to Chicago was completed in late June 2016 with the opening of their new HQ at the Merchandise Mart building.

To

• In 2016, ConAgra cut 1,500 jobs, moved its headquarters to Chicago, Illinois, and rebranded as "Conagra Brands".

References

Because

• This keeps the timeline straight
• This removes some WP:CRYSTALBALL language and replaces it with what actually happened and generally tightens up the opening to the paragraph
• This cleans up the references to match the others in the article

I also propose removing the second paragraph related to TaiMei, as that information is in the previous section and is redundant.

Please let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 20:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about that, it seems I did not receive a notification about it. I will look over it now! Sorry! about that. Geardona (talk to me?) 22:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done Facepalm Geardona (talk to me?) 22:55, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Geardona: no worries, thanks so much for taking the time to look! RWConagra (talk) 17:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

2016-present history request 2

Hi editors, For my next request, I'd ask that editors remove the second paragraph of the 2016-present section (begins with "On November 18, 2015…"), as it is redundant to information earlier in article (paragraph 4 of the previous section and the last change made by Geardona) and goes into a lot of detail that isn't really relevant to Conagra. Please let me know what you think! RWConagra (talk) 17:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I am a little busy right now, but I can give it a look. Geardona (talk to me?) 12:20, 3 February 2024 (UTC)