Below is a com­plaint let­ter I just sent to Cad­bury. Lets hope some­thing comes of it.

Name of Prod­uct: Favourites
Weight of prod­uct: 600gm
Best before date and batch num­ber: 12/07/10 N 01:50
Where did you pur­chase this prod­uct: Gift
Sub­ject for your Email: Favourites box comes with­out favourite chocolates

Dear Cad­bury Chocolatiers,

I am a long term fan of your prod­uct. I con­sider myself a choco­late afi­cionado and believe that Cadbury’s qual­ity is unmatched on the super­mar­ket shelves — and indeed is on par with the expen­sive stuff you can only buy at fancy choco­late shops.

A box of Cadbury’s Favourites is one of my favourite gifts. It’s much bet­ter than one of those Whitman’s Sam­plers or other generic choco­late box.

Cadbury’s Favourites are a yard­stick for quality.

But you might notice I checked “com­plaint” when sub­mit­ting this feed­back. And I have a com­plaint, just a small one (though not about the reduced size of the choco­lates in your Favourites selec­tion — but I did notice the Cherry Ripe squares seem to have lost a cen­time­tre or two… no doubt a casu­alty of the Global Finan­cial Crisis).

Nay, my com­plaint is more seri­ous. We recently received a 600gm box of Favourites as a gift. Which was ter­rific and very thought­ful. My wife is a teacher and you’d be sur­prised how many stu­dents think mis­cel­la­neous craft will suf­fice as a mate­r­ial reward for her year of ser­vice. It won’t.

I opened this box of Favourites — as is my due (I do, after­all, con­tribute to the report writ­ing process and offer gen­eral moral sup­port through­out the year), I opened the box and lo and behold there were none of my absolute favourite to be found. “A mis­take,” thought I. An issue with dis­tri­b­u­tion in the box due to den­sity… per­haps. But no. I am now at the bot­tom of this 600gm box of Favourites — and to my dis­may have only man­aged to unearth two Turk­ish Delight choco­lates. That’s two. You can count them on less than a hand. A cap­tured Eng­lish Archer could still count them (the French his­tor­i­cally chopped the fin­gers off archers cap­tured dur­ing con­flicts with Eng­land). Two. How can a prod­uct call itself “Favourites” while offer­ing such lip ser­vice to the notion. Well, lip ser­vice is a mis­nomer — I cer­tainly didn’t feel served. I know my wife didn’t eat them — she doesn’t like them. And it seems unlikely (though they are of value) that any­body has bro­ken into our rel­a­tively secure home just to steal those choco­lates from the box.

I was most dis­ap­pointed Cad­bury. I believe you can do bet­ter. Per­haps the bal­ance of choco­late in these boxes needs to shift from the bor­ing “Dairy Milk” squares (which I assume are designed to cater for the low­est denom­i­na­tor of choco­late con­sump­tion) to the fun stuff — like the Moros, the Pic­nics, Cherry Ripes, and of course my beloved Turk­ish Delights.

You are no doubt sick of hack­neyed For­rest Gump ref­er­ences in these feed­back forms — but the prob­lem I have with this par­tic­u­lar box is that I know exactly what choco­lates I’m not going to get from the box. And they’re my favourites.

Sin­cerely,

Nathan Camp­bell

Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He is currently a student at the Queensland Theological College. In a previous professional life he worked in public relations for an economic development and tourism marketing organisation. He is married to Robyn. He likes coffee and the internet.

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