America! The Art of Complaining (Re: Ref #: 003950881A)

Go ahead, complain. Yeah. It’s one of the greatest pleasures of being an American. Don’t like something? Voice your concern. Let them know you’re not pleased. Tell The Man. He cares, and if he doesn’t… well, he should, dammit! Because America is all about the people. We the people!

It doesn’t always work, though. Some big companies are stingy, rude and careless. You complain to them and they will not only not send you freebies but fail to even acknowledge your letter. Some may even blame you for not liking their stuff. Those companies should be stripped of their Americanness, you hear?

Enter Pepperidge Farm. This is one of those companies that used to be small and family-run and all that but it is now a multinational conglomerate worth billions of dollars doing business as the small bakery that cares (emphasis mine, their slogan is different and trademarked). Bullshit. America rocks, but there’s so much bullshit around us, specially in food companies. They all started in their mom’s basement, delivering by hand their time-honored recipes and suddenly making millions and turning into enormous corporate behemoths headquartered in India. But we still bake/brew/cook/produce/deliver like mom use to bake/brew/cook/produce/deliver!

See for example the story Pepperidge Farm tells us about the origins of the company:

Henry Rudkin began carrying Margaret’s bread with him on the train to Grand Central Terminal to be sold at specialty shops in New York City. And as word about the extraordinary product got around, the tiny company grew. It had no business model, no strategic plan. Margaret just baked the bread by hand in her kitchen, making sure that every loaf was as good as it could be.

Bullshit. Beautiful bullshit! But who doesn’t love a good old American bullshit story of overnight rags-to-riches success? I do! Fuck Yeah. I love America.

But I digress. Enter Pepperidge Farm, now for real. They say this and that, blah blah blah, we’re so natural and good and premium. Don’t get me wrong, Wife and I like them and buy their stuff, until we tried a batch of “Milano Double Chocolate Cookies” and were seriously turned off. They taste like industrial refuse. Mom would definitely not be proud!

So I wrote to Pepperidge Farm, as it is my obligation being a proud American aware of my duties as citizen of the world’s greatest nation (Fuck Yeah!). And I said:

Hello,

My wife and I usually enjoy Pepperidge Farm's cookies. They look good and taste great! But I wanted to tell you about the Milano cookie.

This one cookie doesn't taste good. This cookie feels industrial, artificial and plasticky. This cookie has very little taste and it is akin to munching on Ikea cardboard furniture.

It is sad that a company such as Pepperidge Farm that prides itself so much in "natural" and "traditional" baking delivering "exquisite golden cookies" is actually producing these industrial cookies with very little flavor.

Is this the "art of the cookie"? The "baker's soul"?

And what about the ingredients!?

Do you think a real natural baker would use a list of ingredients longer than the Bill of Rights to produce one single type of cookies? And using such "natural" (note the irony) ingredients as "palm and/or interesterified and hydrogenated soybean and/or hydrogenated cottonseed? "

Just like Mom used to bake, you know. So natural.

We are so disappointed with Pepperidge Farm's Milano artificial and/or industrial cookies that we may even lose our faith in Chess Pieces. God help us!

Nice and convincing or what… The concerned customer service agents at Pepperidge Farm in Norwalk, Connecticut (now wholly owned and operated by Campbell Soup in Camden, New Jersey!) promptly got back to me. And they said:

Mr Bruno Lemieux-Ruibal, we received your message and appreciate your taking the time to contact Pepperidge Farm about the oils in our products.

We value the product comments and suggestions our consumers provide to us. These very comments led us to reformulate many of our products to reduce the level of trans fat. Due to oil availability constraints, we originally labeled our products to preserve the option of using any combination of oils, one of which was palm. However, our accessibility to our preferred oil has increased, and we now use it in the majority of our cookies. The ingredient statements on each package will be updated on an ongoing basis as new packaging is re-ordered.

Only a very limited number of our cookie products continue to use palm oil due to manufacturing and ingredient supply constraints. We continue to look at alternatives to eliminate this oil in as many products as possible.

Cottonseed oil, a vegetable oil, is an ingredient in a number of our products. This wholesome and edible oil is used interchangeably with corn, palm, soybean and canola oils

Hydrogenation, which changes a liquid oil to a semi-solid, is necessary to maintain the texture of our products. Such is the reason, for example, why consumers use solid shortening rather than liquid oils in making pie crusts from scratch.

Our ultimate commitment is to always provide consumers with the delicious, premium quality products they love and expect from Pepperidge Farm. By bringing your comments to our attention, you have helped support our high quality standards and we appreciate your input.

I am sending you coupons via the mail that are redeemable for any Pepperidge Farm item. You will receive them within 7-10 days. I hope you will give us another opportunity to delight you and make sure that with Pepperidge Farm products, you “Never Have an Ordinary Day”.

Thank you for visiting the Pepperidge Farm website.

Pepperidge Farm Web Team jxb

003950881A

Yeah, whatever. You will keep on making crappy artificial industrial cookies that taste like Ikea cardboard and marketed as if they had just come out of Margaret's oven. But I got some free coupons!!! We’ll buy Brussels and Chess Pieces (the only real good stuff from Pepperidge) and celebrate the art of complaining.

America!

Fuck Yeah!