Dear Coca-Cola (13 page)

Jayne Pratt

Batchelors

Crawley

Dear Jayne Pratt

Reference your letter of 21st April.

I wasn't complaining about the quality of your Delicately Flavoured Rice. As I pointed out in my letter, the quality was excellent, and certainly a quantum leap better than the 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!' that I recently had cause to write to you about when you were wearing your Van Den Bergh Foods hat. (Are you moonlighting by the way?). No, my complaint is that you were a bit skinny with the rice. I took advantage of the vouchers you sent me and purchased with them two more packets of Delicately Flavoured Rice, the Pilau and the Garlic & Butter versions. Both were very tasty with a few oven chips, but still miserly in portion size.

It isn't for me to tell you your business of course, and I wouldn't dream of doing so, but I really do think that the 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' arm of your company is letting down the Batchelors side. You would do well to disassociate yourself from them.

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

16th April

Uncle Ben's

Master Foods UK

PE30 4JE

Dear Uncle Ben

I have just dined on a jar of your Sweet and Sour Sauce, which I had with chicken and a rather frugal portion of Batchelor's Delicately Flavoured Rice. (I should have taken the advice on your label and used Uncle Ben's Long Grain Rice instead!)

It is an irony then that it is about something on your label about which I feel I must take you to task. However, before I start beefing, I would like to make it quite clear that the taste of your Sweet and Sour Sauce is excellent, quite the best I have ever tasted outside a Chinese restaurant, and a good deal better than most of them! No, my niggle concerns your use of the words 'A sweet and sour sauce with a selection of crispy vegetables.' Now I won't deny that the vegetables in question could have been crispy at some time in their career, but they certainly weren't very crispy when they reached my bowl and chopsticks. 'Soggy' would be a more apt description of their condition. But then how could they be crispy? Let's face it, after lying in sweet and sour sauce for any length of time it would take a bamboo pole all it's time to remain crispy, never mind a bamboo shoot. I realise of course that you can't very well print 'A sweet and sour sauce with a selection of soggy vegetables' on your label, as this would no doubt put the customers off and you have to make a living, but why not dispense with the description altogether? I am sure it does little to influence the customer's choice, and it would make an honest company out of you.

Otherwise keep up the good work.

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

Master Foods

April 21st

Mr T Ravenscroft

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

We were concerned to receive your letter advising us of your disappointment with your recent purchase of Uncle Ben's Sweet & Sour With Vegetables.

We take great care in the development of our products to ensure that they meet the needs of the consumer and during the manufacture of our products we insist on a high level of quality for raw materials and in-plant processing.

We introduced this product into the market after conducting product and consumer research to ensure that as responsible food manufacturers the product was acceptable to our customers.

We do take notice of what our customers have to say, and have accordingly forwarded your comments on to our Marketing and R&D colleagues for consideration. We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused, and enclose compensation which we hope will make amends for your disappointment.

Yours sincerely

MASTER FOODS

Nancy Livingstone

Customer Services

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

22nd April

Nancy Livingstone

Master Foods

King's Lynn

Dear Nancy Livingstone

You seem to have got the wrong idea entirely from my letter.

I certainly wasn't disappointed with Uncle Ben's Sweet and Sour Sauce, far from it. No, the point I was making is that your 'selection of crispy vegetables' weren't crispy, but nor could they be, so why not dispense with this description and make an honest company of yourself? Remember the words of Robert Maxwell - ' An honest company is a happy company.'

I am pleased that you have passed on my comments to your Marketing and R & D colleagues, and will be most interested in what they have to say. Should I contact them direct or can I leave it to you to pass on their observations to me?

Yours faithfully

NO REPLY!

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

17
^th
March

Hyde’s Brewery

46 Moss Lane West

Manchester

Dear Hyde’s Brewery

I am writing to you in my official capacity as secretary of the New Mills Invalids Club. As part of our Spring activities the club would like to visit your brewery, if Hydes do a brewery tour that is. If so, perhaps you could write to me stating prices, visiting times, discounts for invalids, etcetera.

I visualise that no more than twenty club members will be interested as that is the number which took advantage of our trip to the Black Sheep Brewery in Yorkshire last year, which was most enjoyable apart from a couple of incidents.

One thing I must be aware of before our visit is if any of your overhead walkways are made of metal diamond mesh. I ask this because at the Black Sheep Brewery one of our invalids, Mr Grimshaw, got his peg leg stuck in their overhead diamond mesh walkway, causing a half hour delay and much embarrassment, especially when the tour behind caught up with us and couldn’t get past. Why Mr Grimshaw insists on wearing a peg leg when proper artificial legs are freely available nowadays I really don’t know, but I suspect it’s because he likes people to know he was once in the Navy. Anyway the thing is if Hydes have similar walkways I shall simply tell Mr Grimshaw that he can’t come.

You need have no fears however about the rest of we invalids. Despite our afflictions we are all quite active, sound in wind if not in limb, and are able to get about (no wheelchairs) perfectly well. One of our two epileptic members caused us a bit of concern during the visit to Black Sheep when he had a fit and almost fell into a vat of fermenting hops but you can rest assured that on our visit to Hydes that I, as club secretary, will be keeping a very close watch on him.

Yours sincerely

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

HYDES

Mr T Ravenscroft

Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

18
^th
April

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

With reference to your letter dated 17
^th
March, firstly please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

We do operate tours at Hydes brewery that are available Monday to Thursday evenings throughout the year. The tours cost £7.50 per person which includes the tour of the brewery and a complimentary bar for the evening so you will be able to sample a wide collection of beers. However I do offer a discount for some groups and I would be happy to offer you places at £6 each. Tours start at 7.30pm and last orders is rung in the bar shortly before 10.00pm. You would need to arrange a date in advance so that I can arrange an appropriate number of places for you and the easiest way to do this is to give me a call and I will talk through the availability with you.

To the best of my knowledge none of our walkways are made of diamond mesh so there is little danger of Mr Grimshaw’s peg leg causing any problems.

I look forward to speaking with you soon,

Kind regards

Paul Mouat

Marketing Executive,

Hydes Brewery

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

20
^th
April

Paul Mouatt

Hyde’s Brewery

46 Moss Lane West

Manchester

Dear Paul Mouat

You were so tardy in replying to my letter that I thought the prospect of your having to cope with Mr Grimshaw had put you off, but apparently I have misjudged you. Even so I hope you are not so dilatory at Hydes in the manufacture of your ales or the pubs could soon run dry.

In fact, because you were so long in replying, I have in the meantime arranged a visit to Samuel Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery in North Yorkshire instead. In addition to replying to my letter most promptly they couldn’t have been more helpful. One of their walkways is made of diamond mesh but rather than say no to Mr Grimshaw they have arranged to cover it with plywood during our visit, so as long as Mr Grimshaw’s pegleg doesn’t go through the plywood everything will be hunky dory.

I am still however interested in bringing a party of invalids to Hydes, but probably in the summer now. In view of the fact that you disappointed us with our proposed spring visit would you be prepared to offer us a more generous group rate than £6.00 each? Say £4.00 each and £6.00 for the conjoined twins?

I look forward to your affirmative reply.

Yours sincerely

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

NO REPLY!

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

17th April

Aunt Bessie's

Tryton Foods

Trinity Street

Hull

Dear Aunt Bessie

I have just had the misfortune to try one of your Yorkshire Pudding Beef Dinners. I say misfortune, because what might have been an excellent meal was spoiled by the lack of adequate heating instructions on the packet. Your instructions clearly state 'Remove carton and film wrapping, leaving paper disc on meal, and place on a suitable plate.' As my wife quite rightly pointed out, at no stage in the subsequent instructions is one told to remove the paper disc.

Now you might argue that it would only be common sense to remove the paper disc once the meal is heated through, but unfortunately common sense is not a commodity which my wife has an abundance of - I married her for her looks - so consequently she served up the meal to me with the paper disc still between the Yorkshire Pudding Dinner and the plate. Eating paper, even along with a Yorkshire Pudding Dinner, is not a pleasant experience. Whether or not it was eating the paper disc which gave me diarrhoea the following day I'm not sure - if I
was
sure this letter would be coming from my solicitor, not me - but what I am sure of is that it was an altogether unpleasant and unnecessary experience. This can't be the first time it has happened, and to ensure that it doesn't happen again I suggest that you amend the instructions on your packet accordingly.

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

Tryton Foods

Our Ref 662/JB/MG/97

23 April

Mr T Ravenscroft

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Thank you for your letter of 17 April which we have read with interest.

We sell approximately 250,000 units annually of Beef Dinner (and the same of Chicken Dinner) and you may be surprised to know that your letter is the first of its kind. You state in your letter that the paper was 'between the plate and the pudding', I am intrigued to know whether it was also served to you upside down as the paper covers and protects the pudding contents!