Toenail in my cereal

newwifey

Yesterday morning my husband was feeding our daughter her morning cereal. When he got to the bottom of the bowl he found a large nail, possibly finger but more prob toe.
It didn't belong to him. He wrote a letter to the very well known company involved and included the toenail.
However I was looking at the letter this morning and Im wondering if this is the right way to proceed. What if the company denies ever receiving the letter at all? What would be the best course of action in this case?
Cheers

jor el

Why are you questioning the company's response when you haven't even sent the letter yet? Send the letter, and see what they say.

dudara

Send the letter via registered post. You should also have taken photographs of the offending object.

Will_H

There should also be a consumer helpline number on the cereal box. Call them and see what they say first. Then follow dudara's advice.....

dlambirl

Hmmmmmm...... I dunno if you should of sent the toenail to them, you should of perhaps sent them a photograph of the object instead.

Let us know how you get on.

Nozebleed

surely a toe nail would float?

91011

What reply are you looking for from the company?

No-One got ill, so no compensation can be looked for, hence no reason the company should hide from it.

These things happen in food production, in 99.99% of cases, it is caught by quality control, unfortunately the odd one will get through.

The box or the empty bag will give the company more information as it will have a production code & best before date - this will allow them find out the exact line and which shift made the product and re-emphasize to staff about quality control.

You may get a box of free products from them / some vouchers.

Other than that, there's really nothing you can do.

looksee

I cannot imagine any circumstances in which a toe nail could get into a food production line...

NewHillel

91011 wrote: »

No-One got ill, so no compensation can be looked for, hence no reason the company should hide from it.

Of course compensation can be looked for. At the very least there should be a written apology and the promise of a thorough audit as to what went wrong.

91011 wrote: »

These things happen in food production, in 99.99% of cases, it is caught by quality control, unfortunately the odd one will get through.

Yeah, right. Toenails in cereal. What next, fingers in the sausage roll?
There are NO circumstances in which a toenail should get through quality control. Not in .01% of cases or in .000001% of cases.
Personally I'd keep the article in question and send a photograph of same to the manufacturing company involved and to the food safety authority.

wmpdd3

In my experience the food safety authority only look into certain foreign objects. Out of maybe 8 cases that customers refereed to them they only investigated a locust in a salad bag.

Usually they send a standard reply apologising, sometimes they send detailed explanations of all the processes they employ to ensure quality.

I have never encountered a company going on the offensive about a complaint, but some companies sent compelling evidence they the item couldn't have ended up in the product (documents showing that batch of baby food being sieved before being packaged).

pow wow

NewHillel wrote: »

Of course compensation can be looked for. At the very least there should be a written apology and the promise of a thorough audit as to what went wrong.

Yeah, right. Toenails in cereal. What next, fingers in the sausage roll?
There are NO circumstances in which a toenail should get through quality control. Not in .01% of cases or in .000001% of cases.
Personally I'd keep the article in question and send a photograph of same to the manufacturing company involved and to the food safety authority.

Foreign objects find their way into foodstuffs a lot more than you would think, and no current method of quality control could 100% ensure that that was not the case. I don't know how you think it would - what if an employee (hypothetically) throws a toenail in as part of the packaging process? X-raying every box isn't feasible and the extra weight would be negligible so check weights wouldn't pick up on it...whether it was malicious tamper or accidental, an audit wouldn't necessarily pinpoint the source.

On the issue of compensation - what are you suggesting the OP be compensated for as there was no actual harm done? I'm sure the manufacture will fire off some cereal/vouchers/a token gesture and I don't think that's unreasonable.

I'd send off the letter if I were the OP (particularly if it's baby cereal?) but beyond that I'd forget about it.

dr ro

looksee wrote: »

I cannot imagine any circumstances in which a toe nail could get into a food production line...

have you never seen the way a toenail flies when it's been clipped. Those things can really cover some distance. They're like bullets.

Cabaal

I have to ask the OP what compensation they want or even what response they expect.

Had I found such an object the last thing I'd likely want is more of the product the item was found in

looksee

dr ro wrote: »

have you never seen the way a toenail flies when it's been clipped. Those things can really cover some distance. They're like bullets.

How often would you find someone clipping their toenails in work - any work much less food production? I would believe that someone could have been clipping them at home and one got caught on a jumper sleeve, and subsequently fell into the cereal.

ElleEm

newwifey wrote: »

Yesterday morning my husband was feeding our daughter her morning cereal. When he got to the bottom of the bowl he found a large nail, possibly finger but more prob toe.
It didn't belong to him. He wrote a letter to the very well known company involved and included the toenail.
However I was looking at the letter this morning and Im wondering if this is the right way to proceed. What if the company denies ever receiving the letter at all? What would be the best course of action in this case?
Cheers

Contact the company, tell them the story and they will send you a special labelled bag to return the nail in.
They'll check it against anything in their production room to check if it matches.
Last year, this happened when I found plastic in some very yummy well known ice cream, then more recently when I complained about the quality of some crisps I bought.

newwifey

Hi all
OP here. Thanks for all the replies.
Firstly let me clarify that we are absolutely not looking for financial compensation of any kind. Even though I was pretty grossed out I dont think I suffered any permanent emotional damage.

I was concerned about how the nail actually arrived in the cereal in he first place but I guess you can prevent these things happening. BTW the nail looked torn not clipped - could staff in factories like these be allowed to wear flip flops? I doubt it. Maybe they are hiring in grannies from shreddies with really thick old finger nails?:eek:

Nozebleed the nail was embedded into the cereal and only came free as the cereal got softer.
Caball as you said, I wonder about the sense of offering disgruntled customers vouchers for the same product that caused the offence in the first place.
Will take a few pictures and send the letter. Will let ye know how I get on.
Thanks again

wmpdd3

Again it only here say, but I was told it has to be vouchers for the same kind of product so as to not put the customer in a better position as it could be seen as admiting responsibility.

smelltheglove

The company may question whether it came from their product or the milk in the cereal so best to maybe contact the helpline and see about possibly sending a picture or keeping a picture of the clipping yourself, you may find you need to contact the milk company too.