Monday, 29 March 2010

Waitrose - Duty of care to customers?

In my previous posting about the exploding bottle of orange juice I carefully omitted the name of the company that made and sold the offending product that violently exploded in my car while I was travelling at 70mph on the M6 recently.  I wrote to them as soon afterwards as was possible urging them to reconsider their labelling, because in my opinion this was very inadequate.  Waitrose chose instead to deny any liability (that was expected) for the costs incurred and to say they hoped I would continue to be a customer! Now I think your opinion would be welcome.  
The section of the label that carries storage and use information is 25mm wide and 15mm high.  In this space they have squeezed 202 characters as follows:  Keep refrigerated. Once opened keep refrigerated below 5° C and consume within 1 day. Shake well, this is a natural product and may separate on standing for display until and use by date see top of cap.  
I tried to squeeze this amount of wording into the same size and ended up with a font around 4pt! The type size is too small for me to read with glasses in normal light.  If I improve the light or use a magnifying glass I can read it.
I could easily have been killed in this incident.  Even though I was at fault in that I had failed to follow the instructions I could not read and assumed that fresh orange juice should keep refrigerated for a week, some warning regarding possible fermentation and its consequences should be on the bottle.  A loud bang would have been scary enough but the additional loss of forward visibility while driving at 70mph on a busy road is no joke.
So for failing to read my letter carefully, and ignoring my encouragement to take customer care seriously I say "Waitrose - Shame on you!"


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The most appropriate words on this blog: "I was at fault".
Take responsibility for your own actions!

Anonymous said...

These bottles are dangerous! I always keep the product refrigerated but still the juice can ferment and the pressure inside become too high. It has happened to me three times already (one of them this morning, when I was trying to throw the juice away). Not sure whether it is the juice itself or the design of the bottle. Never had a problem like this with Tropicana and their tetrapack. I love this juice but I will have to stop buying it.