Choco Caramel CupS

A little slice of life from Forksville:
On a recent trip to the supermarket, my ice cream craving coincided with a sale on a new brand at the store--Denali. Apparently, this Michigan company, owned by the (spelling-challenged) Wally and June Blume, originated the now ubiquitous Moose Tracks flavor.

Anyway, after spending waaay too long deciding between Tundra Nut Sundae and Caramel something or other, I went with the former, mostly due to the promise of "chewy choco caramel cups." After plowing through the pint in two sittings, I found one such cup.

The ice cream itself was luscious, but the use of the plural on the packaging clearly promised more than one caramel cup. Fortunately, the carton also pledged “Your complete satisfaction guaranteed or your money back” and gave a phone number.

For those who know me, it should come as no surprise that I called. What was startling was their response. A friendly woman (what’s the feminine form of avuncular?) apologized for the problem and promised to send me some coupons.

Two days later, I got a letter from Hunter Farms, the North Carolina-based distributor of the Alaskan-named Michigan company. In it, they apologized for “any inconvenience this incident might have caused you and your family.” I felt a bit sheepish there. It’s not like the ice cream made me late for work or I found something squirming in my pint.

Moving on, I was excited to find three coupons for free pints and a $5 supermarket gift card (a very generous estimate of a refund.) They had me at coupon.

The moral of the story is that the art of customer service isn’t entirely lost. Some companies do ‘the right thing’ and then some. Another lesson: sometimes you have to spend $1.50 (on sale from $1.99) to get $5 and three free pints of ice cream.

On to the Moose Tracks.