Does Wal-Mart truly have fresh doughnuts? Recently, Wal-Mart has been busted for labeling their doughnuts “fresher” than they truly are. One customer bought a dozen of doughnuts and noticed three expirations stickers were stacked on top of one another.

The first expiration was March 31^st, the second was April 1^st, and the third was April 3^rd. The customer under the screen name Planet Rock posted pictures on Reddit and claimed that Wal-Mart has been lying about their fresh doughnuts. The customer also tried to upload the pictures to the Wal-Mart Facebook page, however, Wal-Mart continues to delete the photos and hide any of the evidence.

Social media sites make it easier for customers to post pictures to the Internet, which allows for millions of viewers to see at once. A company’s reputation can easily be sabotaged with just one stupid, little mistake because it can go viral in seconds. While Wal-Mart’s reputation will probably not be too damaged after this little incident, they should still admit to the fact about them selling old donuts.

 

One of the biggest things I have learned about the communications field is that if a company makes a mistake they should admit to it and apologize. Wal-Mart seems to be doing differently. They are hiding the pictures by deleting them from their social media sites and not brining it to their attention that they should admit to it and handle the situation. How Wal-Mart is handling the situation could potentially ruin their public image.

 

It will be interesting to watch and see how a company as big as Wal-Mart handles this incident. Are they going to continue to ignore it? Will it blow up into something bigger? Or will they admit to it and take action about it?