Hey, you all recall this story about the poisonous Peter Pan peanut butter from the Spring?
Well, fret no longer mothers of malcontented little tykes. That sleepy little mom and pop company in Omaha, Nebraska that goes by the cute moniker ConAgra has vowed to put your favorite brand of brown smudge back in circulation.
Peter Pan peanut butter will return to stores this month with a satisfaction guarantee.
“Satisfaction guarantees” aren’t uncommon, however, this one to me is bloody odd. ConAgra Foods is seeking to reassure customers it has fixed the problems that allowed salmonella to contaminate the product…and sickened some 625 people in 47 states.
Oookaayy…let me just say that a satisfaction guarantee about whether you’ll like the taste of a product is one thing, but when it comes to a potentially fatal bacteria strain? Thanks for nothing.
What if they’re wrong on this…what if someone didn’t properly clean the whatchamacallit sprocket in the thingamajig machine where it’s made? What good is a free bottle of PB or money-back when you’ve contracted salmonella from a tainted food product? This lame attempt at disaster management just smells bad to me… pun intended. Maybe the packaging should have a violator on the label that quotes the surgeon general verbatim that this product has been tested 8 ways to Wednesday and it is now the purest, highest quality PB on the market. Go hard ConAgra and turn this disaster into an opportunity to make the best peanut butter in the store….a satisfaction guarantee is simply a cop-out.
or… 
David Palfenier, president of ConAgra’s grocery division, delusionally expects to restore annual sales to pre-recall levels of about $150 million sooner than expected. “The first shipments go out next week” (…yeah, and the first wave of “shit-ments” are expected about 6 hours after that).
Hasn’t he noticed thanks to the pet food recalls, lead poisoned toys and his own peanut butter fiasco that consumers are now more aware of the crap being fed to them (and their pets) than ever? And I think they care more than he thinks.
“We’re going to be hitting them from all sides,” Palfenier said.
No kidding. I procured a wonderful little virus in Zanzibar last summer and it hit me from all sides as well…during a painfully long flight from Stonetown to Amsterdam to America…and yes, it literally hit me from all sides—I was standing, sitting and kneeling in the rear lavatory of a 777 for 11 hours and an Airbus A330 for 12 hours. Thanks for the heads up ConAgra.
The article goes on to allude to why little old ConAgra is re-launching Peter Pan “now”. Apparently back-to-school season is a good time to be marketing peanut butter…yeah, and nothing relaxes a kid more than knowing he’s got to use the stalls in a school bathroom. Uggh.
Peter Pan won’t win me over with a satisfaction guarantee on a product that costs $3…I’m not that cheap.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
3 Comments
October 3, 2007 at 9:06 am
I agree- that market is too competitive to simply give a guarantee…
However, (maybe this is just me) but until I read your post I TOTALLY forgot about this recall. I think the other slew of recalls has totally made this one almost disappear. Again, that might just be me since I am checking China news daily to see what fires I have to put out…
October 11, 2007 at 7:46 am
I work part time at a grocery store in Pittsburgh, and we still have not started carrying it yet. The Wal Marts in the area have, but (Giant Eagle) where I work is a bit more skeptical about putting this back on the shelf. They doubled and tripled up on their Jif and Skippy supplies (not to mention the store brand, which curiously tastes and awful lot like Peter Pan).
Anyway, a fine POV on this issue.
January 26, 2009 at 7:57 pm
I’d hit it.