Dear Coca-Cola
Page 8
001874979 A4 March
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your recent letter.
Unfortunately Power Coffee is not available for sale in the United Kingdom. Whilst sales do well in America, consumer research suggests that demand in the UK would not be sufficient to justify the long production runs necessary to ensure the good value customers require.
Our experience with this and other brands leads us to conclude that consumer tastes can vary considerably between different countries. Nescafe Fine Blend contains 4.6g of caffeine. Per 100g jar, 1 teaspoon is roughly 3g.
We hope this reply is not too disappointing. However, our marketing policy is constantly under review and your comments have been noted.
As I am sure you will appreciate, we receive many requests for information and we are not always able to go into great detail on the specific points raised. However, we enclose a booklet all about coffee which we hope you will find helpful.
Thank you once again for taking the trouble to contact us and for the interest you have shown in our Company.
Yours sincerely
Sue Tomlinson
Customer Service Executive
Consumer Services
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
17th March
Sue Tomlinson
Customer Service Executive
Nestle
PO Box 207
York
Dear Sue Tomlinson
Thank you for your letter. Shame that you don’t do Power Coffee over here but I’ll survive I suppose, it was just that the less I have to go to the toilet for a pee the better I like it, as sometimes toilets aren’t readily available.
However I’ve had an idea. Do you think if I were to make a batch of your coffee, say a gallon, and boil it down to half a gallon that it would double the caffeine content? Have a word with your boffins and let me know, would you?
Thank you also for the four wonderful booklets all about coffee that you sent, especially the one entitled The Power of Love, all about the Gold Blend couple Sharon and Tony. What a love story! I was an avid follower at the time, although I must say that my wife thought it was a bit soppy, but then that’s about all you can expect from an ex-lady wrestler.
I think you were wise not to mention that since drinking all that coffee Sharon died rather prematurely in Holby City. If you had done some people might have thought it had something to do with your coffee, which I’m sure it wasn’t, but you can’t stop people from talking, can you.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
Nestle
Mr T Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
001874978 21March
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your recent letter concerning coffee.
With reference to your question, caffeine melts at 238 degrees centigrade. It doesn’t boil, but sublimes at 178 degs. So if you wanted to concentrate some solubilised coffee to half its volume, the caffeine concentration would approximately double as the temperature required to boil coffee mixture is only just over 100 degs.
Thank you once again for taking the trouble to contact us and for the interest you have shown in our Company.
Yours sincerely
Melanie Durkin
Customer Relations Officer
Consumer Services
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
29th March
Melanie Durkin
Customer Relations Officer
Nestle
PO Box 207
York
Dear Mel
Thanks for the very useful information. I wasted no time in making a batch of Power Coffee. At first I was going to boil two gallons of coffee down to one gallon to give me a beverage with 100% added caffeine, but, never a man to go about things half-heartedly, I decided to distil the two gallons down to a bit under two pints, giving me a concoction which had a caffeine content of an extra 1000%.
What a brew! To try it out I mixed a generous helping into our dog Rantzen’s Pedigree Chum – I have nothing against experimenting on animals - and it didn’t stop barking for two days. Then I tried it myself and realised what all the fuss was about.
I realise of course that caffeine stimulates the central nervous system, which is why I can’t get enough of it, as I like to be stimulated, but I can honestly say that my central nervous system was stimulated beyond my wildest dreams. I drank just one mug full of it on Monday morning and I haven’t been to bed since and today is Thursday. During that time I have worked three shifts, driving over eight hundred miles (with no pit stops to go to the toilet, thanks to you), decorated our living room, dug the foundations for an extension, tarred the garage roof, twice run ten miles in training for the next London Marathon, made love four times and dug a dog’s grave.
This stuff should be on prescription and I urge you to consider adding it to your range. It would be criminal not to.
Finally, I am looking for sponsors for when I take part in the London Marathon. All monies donated will go to good causes. Possibly towards a stone for Sharon of the Gold Blend ads if she hasn’t already got one. Can I put you down for say, a hundred pounds?
Yours sincerely
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
Nestle
Mr T Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
001874797C 12 April
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your recent enquiry.
As I am sure you will appreciate, we receive many requests every year for financial or product donations. We were able to support over 20% of the fifteen thousand requests last year and the total donated was £1,000,000. Although we would like to help everyone it is obviously not possible to do so.
We have considered your request for sponsorship very carefully but we are advised by our colleagues in Marketing that we are currently not able to support this idea.
The aim of the Nestle Trust is to invest in partnerships and programmes which support the Nutrition, Health and Wellness of young people and which really make a positive difference to their lives. We tend to focus on local good causes which are well managed and relevant to the company and where support will create goodwill with the community generally.
The key area for support is young people (specifically teenagers 11-18 year olds) in the following areas: Out of school childcare generally and specifically 4Children and Make Space, Nutrition, Health and Wellness, Sport, Education (but not areas which are Local Education Authority responsibility), Community Development.
Because of the number of requests we receive, we focus our support on charities or good causes which are local to our factories and depots, and, where appropriate, make a donation direct.
Thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact us and for giving us the opportunity to explain our position. I wish you every success in your fund-raising efforts.
Yours sincerely
Melanie Durkin
Consumer Relations Officer
Consumer Services.
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
24th April
Melanie Durkin
Customer Relations Officer
Nestle
York
Dear Mel
Last Sunday, fuelled by Nescafe 1000% extra caffeine as recommended by your good self, I ran in the London Marathon. Sadly you didn’t feel able to sponsor me for this event, but I don’t hold this against you, in fact quite the opposite, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the words ‘Nescafe Made This Possible’ emblazoned on my running singlet. Did you perhaps get a glimpse of me? I was running ju
st behind Rod Hull and Emu for a couple of miles (I wasn’t chancing running in front of him after what he did to Michael Parkinson!). I am told by friends that I was briefly on television three times, which is excellent publicity for Nescafe I am sure.
It was my hope of course to complete the course, but sadly this proved to be a little too much for me. However I covered twelve and a half miles before I collapsed, which is almost halfway, and raised £433. In fact I am fairly sure the TV cameras were on me when I lost consciousness. I am absolutely sure they were on me when a St John’s Ambulance man revived me at the side of the road because the cameraman asked him to move to one side so he could get a good shot of me. You will be happy to know that even though I was still quite groggy I had the presence of mind to point at the ‘Nescafe Made This Possible’ motto on my singlet.
In view of this would you like to reconsider your decision not to sponsor me?
Yours sincerely
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
Nestle
Mr T Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
001874970 1 May
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your recent letter.
Congratulations on your marvellous effort in the London Marathon and for raising £433.00. We were sorry to learn that you failed to complete the course and hope you are now fully recovered.
Further to our previous letter, in which we said we were unable to sponsor you, there has been no change in the decision that we communicated to you. Sorry if this response is disappointing for you.
Thank you once again for your interest in our products.
Yours sincerely
Gillian Liddell
Consumer Relations Officer
Customer Services.
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
1st May
Hovis Ltd
Claremont House
Yorkley
Glos
Dear Hovis
There are a number of Bovis homes under construction not far from where I live. As I passed by the other day the bricklayers and their labourers were just starting their lunch break. I observed that each and every one of them was eating sandwiches made with Hovis bread. Now I realise of course that Hovis is popular, but ten men all eating it is too much of a coincidence, and I got to wondering if there is any connection between Hovis and Bovis, their names being so similar, and that the workers were maybe getting subsidised bread. Could I be right? Is Bovis indeed a subsidiary of Hovis?
Incidentally, each of the workers was a fine figure of a man and a testament to your bread, with not so much an inch of buttock cleavage between them as far as I could discern.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
KEARS GROUP LTD
12th May,
Mr Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
Cheshire
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thankyou for your letter re Hovis bread and Bovis Homes, we would like to confirm that:
THE TWO ARE NOT CONNECTED
GOOD BREAD'S OUR CLAIM TO FAME
BUILDING HOUSES JUST AREN'T US
BRICKS JUST DON'T TASTE THE SAME
THE REASON PEOPLE EAT IT
BE THEY BUILDERS FIT OR NOT
IS THE TASTE THE TEXTURE AND HEALTHINESS
WITH HOVIS YOU GET THE LOT.
I hope this clears up your questions regarding Hovis Bread, but should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours Sincerely
KEARS GROUP LTD
L. CHILDS (MRS)
QUALITY ASSURANCE DEPARTMENT
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
19th May
L Childs (Mrs)
Kears Group
Lydney
Glos
Dear L Childs (Mrs)
Thank you for your letter of 12th May. What an original and entertaining reply!
Since I wrote to you I have become quite friendly with the workers building the Bovis homes, and have discovered that most of them don't in fact eat Hovis bread, and what I took to be your bread was actually other brands of brown bread, notably Allinsons Stone Ground and Warburtons. It is ironic then that the only one of them who does eat Hovis, Declan his name is, is the least healthy-looking of the lot of them, having a definite hump back and a limp, although this could well be to do with him carrying a hod all day.
Although Hovis may be trailing a little behind the others in its health-giving properties I can report that it could very well make people poetic, because after I showed Declan your letter he immediately offered the following ditty.
EAT BROWN BREAD
SHIT LIKE LEAD
NO BLOODY WONDER
FART LIKE THUNDER
EAT BROWN BREAD
I like to think of myself as a bit of a poet, but I am nowhere near as adept at the art as your good self and Declan, so with this in mind I am seriously considering changing to Hovis in the hope that it will improve my poems. I'll let you know if it does.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
26th March
Van den Bergh Foods Ltd
Brooke House
Crawley
West Sussex
Dear Van den Bergh Foods
I have just tried a packet of your 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!' After sampling it I very soon came to the conclusion that whoever thought up the name for your product may have been guilty of setting his sights a little too high. I suggest that a more appropriate and believable name might have been 'I Can't Believe It's Not Vegetable Oils, Buttermilk, Water, Salt, Milk Proteins, Lactic Acid, Emulsifier, Nono and Di Gycerides, Lecithin, Preservative, Sorbic Acid, Vitamins A, D and E, Flavouring, Colour and Natural Carotene,' which is what it actually is, or at least that’s what it claims on the wrapper. Perhaps 'I Can't Believe It's Not Axle Grease,' which is what it actually tastes like.?
Who are these people who 'Can't Believe It's Not Butter'? A special race of people who have their taste buds removed at puberty?
It is my intention to report your spurious claim to the authorities unless you can give me one good reason why I shouldn't.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
Van den Bergh Foods
Telephone: 01293 648000 Facsimile: 01293 Direct line: 01293 648
REF 0059336A
April 15,
Mr T Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your recent letter from which we were most concerned to learn that you were disappointed with your purchase of a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!
Before any products are launched by us on a national scale, they are first test marketed in one or two areas for a long period of time. In this way we are able to collect all kinds of consumer reaction to the product, the type and design of packaging and, of course, texture and taste but we do appreciate that taste is a matter of personal preference.
In view of the above, we are sorry that you have been disappointed. We would, however, like to thank you for the interest you have shown in our product.
Yours sincerely
Jayne Pratt
Customer Services Manager
****
17 Lingland Road