Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A.
- Jul 16, 2018

Coupon Compensation

On the one hand, it is very nice to received compensation coupons from a company when I report a defective product to them. On the other hand, I seem to be doing more and more complaining about defective products, way too much in fact. This is the 21st century. Factory systems were first developed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, over two hundred years ago. There has been plenty of time for the food industry to debug the factories wherein they cook, bake, can, seal, sack, and box our food. Whatever happened to quality control* within the company? I do not work for these companies, and my time is worth more than a handful of coupons, no matter how sparkly the dollar value, especially at the end of life when one has less and less time.

For example, I recently complained that some longitudinally slicked Vlasic pickles were not cut all the way through, forcing me decant the entire jar to finish their work. Vlasic's automated system should have caught it, and they claim to have human checkers, who also should have caught it. I suspect companies hope people will just accept whatever is on the shelf. I have to say that I like Vlasic pickles very much and have enjoyed them for about sixty-five years. A relish plate of assorted Vlasic pickles is a nice snack.

Still, this coupon compensation policy to cover for sloppy food factories is a ring of gold in a swine's snout.

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* "Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as 'A part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements'."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_control