Dear Coca-Cola (17 page)

No, as I say, what I wish to complain about is not the food but the picture on the packet, which is of a plateful of succulent-looking lamb slices in a most nourishing looking gravy, and bears about as much resemblance to the contents inside as does the Queen to Kevin in Coronation Street when he had a moustache.

I would appreciate your comments on this deception.

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

TENDERCUT MEATS

3 February

Mr Ravenscroft

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

Thank you for your recent letter concerning a purchase of our sliced lamb in gravy.

We have always been proud of the fact that Tendercut Meats have set the highest quality standards. With this in mind, please accept our thanks for taking the trouble to contact us with your views and comments. They help us to continue to look at ways of ensuring that each and every one of our products reaches our customers in the best possible condition.

Our product is in fact produced with New Zealand Lamb with only the leg bone and the majority of fat removed. We are delighted to inform you that within the next two months you will be able to purchase the Tendercut range of Ready Carved Joints with a new recipe; having removed E621 and E262 making the range 100% natural.

As you said, your main complaint was with the picture on the box. We are bound by law to only show a photograph that gives a true representation of the contents; in this case slices of meat in gravy, we also work very closely with trading standards when we produce all our packaging and products. However, we sincerely regret that you felt mislead and would ask you to accept the enclosed goodwill gesture. We hope this unfortunate incident has not deterred you from purchasing further products from the Tendercut range.

Yours sincerely

J Moule

Tendercut Meats Ltd

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

14th Feb

J Moule

Tendercut Meats

Brickfield Lane

Eastleigh

Dear J Moule

Thank you for your letter of 3rd February, and the P.O. for £5. I will save it until such time as you bring out the Tendercut range of Ready Carved Joints with their E 621 and E262 elements removed. It is always good to hear of E numbers being got shot of, and there is an excellent chance that their removal will bring about a substantial improvement. More power to your elbow. Incidentally, what exactly are E621 and E 262 as I think one of them recently made me poorly?

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

NO REPLY!

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

25th March

Pork Farms

55 Stallard Street

Trowbridge

Wiltshire

Dear Pork Farms

A couple of friends and I have just won a racehorse in a raffle. We have to find a name for it and as we are all fans of your pies we thought we would call it Pork Farms Pork Pies. Have you any objection to this? I don't think there's much chance of it ever winning as someone I know in the horseracing game says that from the look of it if we entered it in the three-o-clock race there would be no more than an outside chance of it being placed in the three-thirty. However I thought I'd better mention that in case you feel that a horse called Pork Farms Pork Pies coming in last might reflect badly on your pies.

Looking forward to hearing from you, with your blessing.

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

PORK FARMS BOWYERS

Mr Ravenscroft

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

Ref: Gj201/JJ

14 April

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

Firstly, may I apologise for the delay in responding to your letter, and secondly can I congratulate you on your recent good fortune. I must add that in my time at Pork Farms I have received some very unusual requests, but this is far and away the most unusual to date.

I am very pleased that both you and your friends are fans of our Pies, so much so that you would name your proud possession after them. However, (and here is the boring legal bit), we cannot allow any use of the Pork Farms brand name outside of our corporate control. We would need to enter a licensing agreement that would need every aspect of your hobby being agreed to and signed off by our lawyers. I think you will agree that this would be a mutually tiring affair, particularly as the object of this exercise is fun. The more generic title of Pork Pie would, of course, be entirely down to yourselves.

I apologise for this slightly bureaucratic response, but we do need to ensure that the brand name is managed correctly. I will, however, look out for Pork Pie running in the 2.30 at Kempton and, despite your reservations about the horse's talents, have a small flutter.

Please find enclosed some vouchers that will hopefully please you all (even your equine friend)!!

Regards,

Gary Johnston

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

25th April

Gary Johnston

Pork Farms Bowyers

Queens Drive

Nottingham

Dear Gary Johnston

Thank you for your letter of 14th April and the vouchers, although I really do wish you hadn't put the idea into my head of feeding your pork pies to our horse. The thing is, with the vouchers I bought eight pork pies, ate one of them myself - delicious, as usual - and fed the other seven to the horse. The following day it dropped dead. The vet said it could very well have been the pork pies that caused the horse to go into the violent spasms that led to it having a heart attack, and that I was 'bloody stupid'. I must say his reasoning that eating seven pork pies can cause a heart attack is totally beyond me - I've eaten four of them many a time and the horse was twice as big as me, so if you ask me it is the vet who is bloody stupid! Anyway I thought I'd better mention it to you so that you won't advise anybody else to feed pork pies to their racehorses.

On a more pleasurable note, having now owned a racehorse, my friends and I have really got the horseracing bug, so we're going to buy another one. I have checked with Tattersall's and it seems that there already is a horse called Pork Pies. (So great minds apparently
do
think alike!) So we have decided to call our new horse Not As Good As Pork Farm Pork Pies, which will fulfil the dual purpose of giving your firm a bit of a leg up, whilst not using your brand name.

Would this be acceptable to you?

Yours faithfully

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

NO REPLY!

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

21
^st
February

Jordans

Consumer Care Team

Freepost BF 304

Biggleswade

Dear Jordans Porridge Oats

For the last three months I have been breakfasting each morning on a bowl of your porridge oats as part of the G I (Glycaemic Index) diet, and very good they are too. They really fill me up and set me up for the day. This alone would make them well worth the price, but I have discovered to my great joy that your oats bring with them an added benefit, and a most welcome benefit at that!

I wouldn’t like this to get around of course - although I wouldn’t object to you showing this letter around the office - but since starting to eat your oats my sex life has improved no end. I suppose this is in part due to my being quite a lot slimmer and thus more attractive to my wife, having lost three stones since I started the diet (I am now down to a quite presentable nineteen stones), but I’m sure that my extra energy and staying power, fuelled as it is by your oats, has played an even bigger part.

I know from personal experience that regular helpings of milk-soaked anchovies can do wonders for a chap’s sex drive but I never suspected that porridge oats might do the same. Have any other of your customers experienced this phenomenon?

Yours sincerely

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

JORDANS

Mr T Ravenscroft

Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

5 March Ref: 2007014580

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

Thank you for your very nice letter regarding out Conservation Grade Porridge Oats. It is so pleasant to receive comments as we do try to maintain the highest standards of quality and value.

We do certainly listen to what our customers have to say and quite often changes in formulation take place because of popular opinion, although I don’t think we will be putting your ‘newly found extra benefit’ down on the pack as a unique selling point for our porridge oats but please be assured that I am passing copies of your letter over to our Technical and Marketing Department, who always appreciate feedback from our customers especially when they are as positive as yours.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us and for your support of Jordans.

Yours sincerely

Rita Farmer

Consumer Advisor

****

17 Lingland Road

New Mills

CHESHIRE

8
^th
March

Rita Farmer

Consumer Adviser

W Jordan (Cereals) Ltd

Biggleswade

Dear Rita Farmer

Thank you for your prompt and courteous reply.

Despite what you say about not putting my ‘newly found extra benefit’ on your packet as a unique selling point for your porridge oats I must say I think you are wasting a golden opportunity. However I believe you may very well change your mind when you hear about the most wonderful slogan I have managed to come up with to promote your company’s product. Wait for it …. ‘
Get your oats with Jordan’s Oats
’. Such a witty catchphrase is guaranteed to sell thousands of extra packets, I am quite sure. What do you think?

Unfortunately I can’t claim credit for the ditty as it was dreamed up by my friend Atkins down the road, who incidentally is now also a fan of your oats since I put him on to them a couple of weeks ago. Regarding Atkins I must point out that, unlike me, he has not noticed any change in his sex life since breakfasting
a la Jordan’s
, but that isn’t surprising as he claims to be a five nights a week and twice on Sunday man even when oat unaided, which isn’t bad for a man in his early sixties, I’m sure you will agree.

One further point. I notice you claim that your packets of oats may contain wheat, barley, rye, nuts, and sesame seeds. I must say I’d never noticed any of these ingredients in your porridge so I decided to investigate further. To my great surprise, and despite going through several packets with a fine toothcomb, I found not a single trace of any of wheat, barley, rye, nuts, or sesame seeds. It is no business of mine of course but I do feel that if you are claiming your oats contain any or all of these ingredients you should make a greater effort to include them.

However this is the only blot on an otherwise excellent copybook.

Yours sincerely

T Ravenscroft (Mr)

****

JORDANS

Mr T Ravenscroft

Lingland Road

New Mills

Cheshire

14 March Ref: 2007014580

Dear Mr Ravenscroft

Thank you for your recent letter regarding our Conservation Grade Porridge Oats. Your slogan is very good but if we put claims like you suggest on our porridge oat packaging we will need to back them up with hard facts and as you are the only customer who has informed us of this precise benefit I don’t think our legal department will let us get away with it. If we have a customer who was relying on this particular benefit and it did not happen for him/her we could be sued - with the litigation society we live in these days.