Shopper’s Waitrose rant: There are too many seeds on my loaf
AS Middle England’s supermarket of choice, Waitrose must go above and beyond to meet its customers’ exacting standards.
One store, however, has fallen woefully below par in the eyes of a shopper who felt compelled to return a luxury loaf of bread because its ‘character’ had been ruined by ‘too many seeds’.
The disgruntled woman, said to be in her 50s, bought the £1.49 Jackson’s seeded bloomer from her local Waitrose in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
But hours later she was back at the till with the half-eaten loaf and a handwritten note to lodge what onlookers called ‘the most middleclass’ and ‘ fitting’ Waitrose complaint ever.
The note read: ‘Quantity of seeds has increased over the last 2 months. Character of bread has now changed. Not as good.’
She proceeded to complain to the customer service desk for the next 15 minutes before eventually being granted a refund on the 800g loaf last week, according to shoppers who were watching on.
One witness said: ‘I don’t think you could get a more middle-class complaint if you tried. I’ve never seen anyone take such a firm view
on seeds. The poor customer service worker had to hear the history of her bread-buying.
‘She had apparently been buying that loaf for years. I’m quite bemused by the fact she ate half of it just to be sure. It couldn’t be a more fitting Waitrose complaint.’
Jackson’s marketing manager Deborah Dyson said: ‘The only change we’ve made to our bread recently is to remove palm oil and this has been at the request of our customers, but this hasn’t affected our bread in the slightest and there’s definitely no more seeds going into our seeded bloomer.’
She added that she was ‘sorry to hear we’ve had an unhappy customer’ and suggested that Jackson’s also offers a white and a brown bloomer that ‘she might like to try instead’. Waitrose declined to comment.