POOR QUALITY CONTROL MANAGEMENT STICKS IN MY THROAT…

Browsing through Nature’s Garden reviews before penning this review, it’s worrying to see that if one aggregates my complaint with the other’s, Nature’s Garden has some potentially serious quality control issues. We bought and prepared a bag of Nature’s Garden Frozen Stir Fry for dinner and during the meal I discovered a hard object in my mouth. At first glance, it looked like a piece of plastic from a production machine. On closer examination it resembled a machine warning light lens. The next day I made contact with the company by the number on the packet and after discussing the problem, they finally arranged for their representative to collect both the packet along with the foreign object. I had explained to the person taking my complaint that the object discovered was a serious threat to life and limb and not a minor issue. I could easily have choked to death, broken teeth or suffered a serious medical emergency. What might have happened had I swallowed the plastic fragment, been rushed to emergency and required hospital treatment along with all the associated pain and suffering…? … Death, of course, didn’t even bear discussion! Three weeks later I received a long email explaining the technical extent of the advanced machinery they employ to prevent this very possibility occurring and the steps they go to ensure that no foreign material ends up in their products. Amongst the jargon was the admission that the object ‘might’ have eluded these stringent processes and ended up in the bag. Well, if that was meant to reassure me that Nature’s Garden were a brand I could confidently buy and that their processes, quality controls and management were beyond approach - It didn’t! I responded with a return email telling them just that. Their infra-red and x-ray assurances along with apparent highly technical elimination processes had ultimately failed. Laxness on the floor; ‘short-staffing problems’ or that the machines they boasted might have for a short time been unattended, broken, being serviced, not in operation, defective, switched off or ‘off-line’ for any reason during a production run were all possibilities that were not even mentioned. Blaming the machine, unfortunately remains a very convenient scapegoat when the human element fails! I added that their bland ‘cut-and-paste’ explanation in response to my complaint was clearly not the way to deal with a serious breach in their quality control processes. Ultimately, it exposed customers to the fatal consequences of that negligence. As it has now been over three weeks and because Nature’s Garden have ignored my concerns, I believe that one that meets basic customer satisfaction standards is not going to be forthcoming. I will therefore hope to alert the retail chain where I bought the product in the event that similar incidents arise and will post this review to warn and caution others to be wary when buying Nature’s Garden products!