Weber Shandwick Launches Food Issues Practice

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 WASHINGTON, D.C., April 22, 2008 – Weber Shandwick, a global leader in food and agriculture public relations, has launched a new Food Issues Practice to assist food, beverage and agricultural organizations in handling complex issues. The practice is led by Susan Ruland, senior vice president at Powell Tate, the Washington, D.C., office of Weber Shandwick, and draws on extensive food and crisis-related expertise across Weber Shandwick’s network.

“This is a critical time for food and beverage organizations, and many are seeking specialized assistance for rapid, effective action on pressing issues,” said Ruland. “With this new practice, we can immediately zero in on an issue, and apply the right expertise from a tremendous portfolio of world-class resources.”

The Food Issues Practice is addressing a broad range of challenges to today’s companies and organizations, including environmental sustainability, food safety, food nutrition and obesity concerns, animal welfare, biotechnology and other issues. The practice is also equipped to handle legislative initiatives, as well as executive reputation and brand management.

The practice taps into a network of experts in nutrition, food safety, food recalls and crisis communications, as well as food and beverage marketing. In addition to having registered dietitians on-staff, Weber Shandwick offers a unique network of 100 registered dietitian spokespeople across the United States who are deployed on behalf of clients. The staff also includes former national journalists, and some of the country’s leading experts in new and traditional media – for business, public policy and general consumer media. A research arm, and cutting-edge monitoring and measurement tools round out the capabilities.

In leading the practice, Ruland applies extensive experience with food and beverage issues, having served for over a decade as head of communications at the International Dairy Foods Association. She managed the association's communications and media functions on behalf of such companies as Kraft, Nestlé, Dean, Dreyer’s, Kroger and Safeway; and has helped manage numerous Washington-based food and beverage coalitions and initiatives.

Food and beverage organizations already comprise one of the largest sectors of Weber Shandwick’s global business, with clients represented in nearly every grocery store aisle.

Find out more information at http://www.powelltate.com/ or http://www.webershandwick.com/.

About Weber Shandwick
Weber Shandwick is one of the world's leading global public relations firms with offices in major media, business and government capitals around the world. The firm specializes in strategic marketing communications, media relations, public affairs, reputation management, and crisis and issues management. It also offers corporate communications counseling services. The firm provides specialized integrated services including Web relations, advocacy advertising, market research and visual communications. Weber Shandwick received the highest client-satisfaction honors in the 2007 Agency Excellence Survey by PRWeek U.S. and in 2006, was named Large PR Firm of the Year (PR News U.S.), European Consultancy of the Year (The Holmes Report) and Network of the Year (Asia Pacific PR Awards). The firm also won the 2005, 2006 and 2007 United Nations Grand Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Relations. To learn more, please visit www.webershandwick.com.

Weber Shandwick is a unit of The Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), which is one of the world's leading organizations of advertising agencies and marketing services companies.