So I recently bought some canned salmon and was really excited about it because I love salmon and because it seemed like it would make a great alternative to mercury-laden tuna for my 2 year old son.
It was awful.
But not because of the taste, which I didn’t even get to, but because when I opened the can I was greeted by hundreds of bones (including some entire vertebra) and large sections of skin. I wouldn’t even feed the stuff to my cat.
I have to assume that this was not what they intended to sell and that it was a mistake and a failure in their quality control process somewhere. Ordinarily, like most people, I wouldn’t bother informing the company, but would re-tell the experience to hundreds of my friends. A cautionary tale to any company that doesn’t think quality matters or that thinks it can react to bad quality quickly enough to cover it up.
But I really, really wanted the idea of canned salmon to work and wanted the company to be successful. After all, they did have a really pretty and edgy label design.
So I wrote them an email. I used the link on the front page of their website under “contact us”–a reasonable sounding approach.
Below is the transcript of the email. I guess they’ll never know my dissatisfaction after all. If it’s a problem with some cannery they outsourced to, they’ll never know it. If their quality control guy is worthless, they’ll never know it. They’ll just slowly lose business and always wonder why, perhaps, sadly, thinking the whole canned salmon thing isn’t such a great idea after all when in fact it’s a great idea:
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
:
63.249.18.148 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 info@purealaskasalmon.com unknown user account
Giving up on 63.249.18.148.
--- Below this line is a copy of the message.
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:24:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Tim Cull
Subject: disappointing experience with Think Pink
To: info@purealaskasalmon.com
I bought a can of Think Pink Wild Pink Salmon and was very excited to try it. It seemed like such a wonderful alternative to tuna.
But as soon as I opened the can my hopes were immediately deflated. It didn't even have to try it to know it was disgusting. It was full of bones and skin; and I'm not talking a few small bones, I'm talking huge bones--including several entire vertebra. And 4 sq. in. swaths of skin.
I'm hoping that was some kind of accident in the canning and quality control process and not the way you intended to actually sell salmon. Anyhow, I won't be buying any more.
--Tim