Dear Coca-Cola (5 page)

CWS Ltd

MANCHESTER

Dear Jean Jackson

I am not at all happy that you do not feel able to bring about an undoubted improvement in your Co-op Vegetable Lasagne. I am not at all happy about the reckless abandon with which you appear to throw about Goodwill Vouchers for £2.00 either. No wonder the Co-op can't afford to pay divi out any more!

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

NO REPLY!

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

22nd March

Butcher's Pet Care Ltd

Crick

Northants

Dear Sir

I am writing to congratulate you on a truly excellent product. I have just dined on a can of your Butcher's Tripe Mix, which I had with a portion of oven chips, and it was quite superb. With a bottle of Beaujolais to wash it down it felt almost like I was back in the Dordogne. At long last a British manufacturer has succeeded in doing with offal what the French have been doing with it for years. God bless you!

I do however have one minor criticism. Why do you refer to your tripe as an 'animal derivative' on the label? Tripe is offal, nothing more, nothing less, and to call it anything else is to pretend that it is something it isn't. There is nothing wrong with offal, believe me, I've eaten tons of it, and I shall be eating even more tons of it if you keep up the standard of your wonderful Butcher's Tripe Mix. A question though. Why is there a picture of a dog on the label?

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

BUTCHER’S PET CARE

11 April

Mr Ravenscroft

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

Thank you for your letter congratulating us on our Butcher's Tripe Mix product.

We receive many similar letters from satisfied owners writing to us on behalf of their dog. Yours is the first letter we have had from a human consumer.

The Feeding Stuffs Regulations 1995 require us by law to describe tripe on the label under the heading meat and animal derivatives. The term offal is not permitted although as you point out it is nothing to be ashamed of.

Please remember Butcher's Tripe Mix is a complementary food and to keep your nose wet and coat in tip top condition you must eat it mixed with an equal quantity of reputable mixer meal.

Please find enclosed £5 worth of vouchers towards your future purchases.

Yours sincerely

Ian Cresswell

Technical Manager

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

28th April

Ian Cresswell

Butcher's Ltd

Crick

Northants

Dear Ian Cresswell

Thank you for your letter of 24th April, and the vouchers, which I passed on to the needy.

It would appear that I have made a mistake and that Butcher's Tripe Mix is a dog food! Perhaps it is understandable though, I mean on boxes of Kellogg's Frosties there's a picture of a tiger but it would be a fool who claimed that tigers eat cornflakes, as I am sure you will agree.

Getting back to the point, your letter arrived too late to have any influence on a meal which I recently put on chez Ravenscroft for a potential client. However I doubt that it would have made any difference to the menu I had decided on, even if it had arrived before my client. In the event he said that the Tripes Provencal, made with your Butcher's Tripe Mix as the basis, was quite superb, and he couldn't believe that most of it had come out of a can. In fact when I showed him the can to prove it he was quite speechless. If I don't get a big order out of him I will be very surprised, although up to now he has been out of the office every time I've tried to contact him. I must say that I enjoyed your little joke about keeping my nose wet and my coat in tip top

condition. Very funny!

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

4th April

The Jacob's Bakery Ltd

P.O.Box 1

Long Lane

Liverpool

Dear Jacob's Bakery

I am writing to you in my official capacity as secretary of the New Mills Invalids Club. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the club, and we mean to celebrate the occasion in some style, whilst at the same time giving club funds a much needed boost. To achieve this we intend to manufacture and sell to the general public a chocolate biscuit. We are confident that we have the expertise to accomplish this as four of our members used to work for the local sweet and confectionery factory - in fact it was because they worked at the local sweet and confectionery factory that they became invalids, having caught various parts of their anatomy in the machinery, but that's another matter.

Here is where you come in. I have long been a fan of your Jacob's Club biscuits, as have many of my fellow members, and to this end we would like to 'cash in' on your esteemed name by calling our biscuit a 'Jacob's Club Foot' biscuit. This would at once inform the public that it is a quality product, and also that it supports invalids. Can I have you permission, please?

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

JACOB’S

17th April

Mr Ravenscroft

Secretary: New Mills Invalids Club.

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of 4th April requesting consent to bring out a chocolate covered biscuit called "Club Foot" in connection with your society's forthcoming anniversary.

We have no objections to the proposals in your letter and hope it proves to a successful fund raiser. Our agreement is given on the understanding that you restrict sales to local fundraising events for a limited period and no mention of The Jacob's Bakery Limited is made on the packaging etc.

Yours sincerely

Gary Brookes

Legal and Finance Department

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

28th April

Gary Brookes

Legal & Finance Dept

The Jacob's Bakery Ltd

P.O.Box 1

Long Lane

Liverpool

Dear Gary Brookes

Thank you for your letter of 17th April.

The New Mills Invalids Club will be forever in your debt. I take note of your request that we do not mention The Jacob's Bakery Limited on our package. In fact I have gone one better, and have made absolutely sure that people will be under no illusions that our biscuits have anything to do with The Jacob's Bakery, as you will see from a perusal of a facsimile of our wrapper, below. It was designed by our Mr Hargreaves, who has one arm and an NVQ in graphic design, and I am

sure you will agree he has made an excellent job of it.

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

JACOB’S

9th May

Mr Ravenscroft

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of 28th April. As mentioned previously in my letter of 17
^th
April, I would prefer it if no mention was made of The Jacob's Bakery Limited on the packaging.

Therefore, please could you remove from the packaging the statement "definitely nothing to do with The Jacob's Bakery Limited".

Yours sincerely

Gary Brookes

Legal & Finance Dept

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

12th May

Gary Brookes

Legal & Finance Dept

The Jacob's Bakery Ltd

P.O.Box 1

Long Lane

Liverpool

Dear Gary Brookes

Thank you for your letter of 20th April. Unfortunately it arrived too late for me to alter the wording on our 'Club Foot' wrapper, so we went ahead with it as it was.

Our anniversary was last Saturday and I am happy to report that it was an unqualified success, especially chocolate biscuit-wise. We made a total of 5000 biscuits and each and every one was sold. Not only that, the biscuits were enjoyed by all who bought them; in fact one man went so far as to say that our Club Foot biscuit was better than your Club biscuit, but I think he was just being nice to us, and anyway he isn't long out of the mental hospital and there are some who hold that he should never have been discharged.

I can report that the occasion was such a great success that we hope to make it an annual event. In closing, I and my fellow members would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. (Except for Mr Beasley, who has recently had a heart transplant, so he would like to thank you from the bottom of somebody else's heart)

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

9 June

JACOB’S

9th June

Mr Ravenscroft

Secretary: New Mills Invalids Club.

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of 12th May . I am glad that your product proved to be such a great success and I hope it raised a substantial amount of money for your society.

It is a shame that we did not receive a sample of your product to show to our R & D department! May I take this opportunity to wish you every success with your future fund-raising events.

Yours sincerely

Gary Brookes

Legal & Finance Dept

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

5th April

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Pepsico Restaurants International

32 Goldsworth Road

Woking

Dear Kentucky Fried Chicken

I am a mature student taking an Open University degree course in Food Technology. At the moment I am gathering data for my thesis, which will be entitled 'Chicken, its Use and Abuse'. I have yet to decide whether or not coating a chicken in a secret recipe before plunging it into hot oil qualifies it as ‘Abuse’ but as Kentucky Fried Chicken is universally popular I will probably include it in the 'Use' section of the thesis.