There are certain social media accounts that must be a nightmare to manage (think H&M), and I would include just about any major food retailer in that list.

One can only imagine the deluge of disgruntled Constantia folks contacting Woolies to bemoan things like their bruised gooseberries, tapping away on their phone whilst sipping on a very early in the day first drink (it’s five o’clock somewhere, darling).

Every so often, however, a complaint comes along that is warranted.

Take for example the complaint highlighted by GoodThingsGuy earlier this week, where a Twitter user was left unimpressed by the weight of her bread.

The screenshot of the exchange between Anke and the retailer pretty much sums it up:

Sorry, say what about that weighing process?

It’s the old “what weighs more – a kilogram of feathers or a kilogram of lead’ question, isn’t it?

Here’s where the job of managing their Twitter account becomes really unpleasant, because once this story broke they were left to pick up the pieces.

Some of their responses:

We ‘weighed up’ that response and found it very light on logic. We’re looking into it on both a store and supplier level and will revert to Anke asap…

that response was horribly ‘light’ on logic, wasn’t it? We promise our social media team is getting a science lesson on Monday. We’ll also get back to Anke once we’ve done more investigation in store and with the supplier…

Not our finest hour. A little ‘light’ on logic. We’ve apologised to Anke, are investigating her issue at both a store and supplier level… and giving our social team a Science 101 on Monday…

we’re very embarrassed by that response; rest assured that we’ll all be getting a Science 101 on Monday. We are talking to the store and the bakery, and will feedback to Anke asap…

There are plenty more apologies out there, but I suppose Woolies deserves some credit for taking it on the chin.

Let’s move on to the debate raging in the original article’s comments section. This one seems somewhat sensical:

I don’t have any exposure to the food or retail industries, but I’m guessing they measure 700g of dough which is then baked… the moisture evaporates during the baking process, leaving you with 460g of dry-weight bread.

But was soon shot down:

That’s a good argument, but you’re not buying 700g of dough, you’re buying 460g of bread… so this would be false advertising….

The industry regulator demands of bakers that they bake bread in increments of 100g. so a 700g loaf of bread will be scaled at 780 grams wet which will give you the 700g finish…

…moisture is a factor, but the law is specific, the bread must weigh not less than 700 gm. at time of sale. There is another consideration. Warm bread contains more moisture tham cold bread. Hence it is wrapped in plastic and often transported in insulated truck bodies. Somebody goofed and it is unacceptable.

And a chap called Durke with this gem:

If it worked like that, then my 250g box of breadcrumbs should be advertised as a 1kg box.

Never stop being you, Durke.

I’ll tell you who’s really getting taken for a ride – anyone who buys biltong at Woolies, or those chicken nuggets for children.

Bloody outrage!

[source:goodthingsguy]