Recently, Dagbladet has uncovered several cases of errors in Freia’s products, including the discovery of foreign objects and incorrect labeling of chocolate.
After this, Espen Holt (53) contacted Dagbladet – to tell about his experience with Freia two years ago.
– I find it disturbing that there are so many stories about this. It surprises me, he says to Dagbladet.
Shock-shock: – My God!
Holt bought a Monolitt chocolate in May 2021, and quickly noticed that something was not right. When he took a bite of the old classic, he is said to have discovered a piece of paper pressed into the chocolate.
– To me it looked like a note with what I assume is a batch number with the time 14:56. I have never experienced anything like it. It was a very special experience, he says.
GOING HARD: Espen Holt was not satisfied with the customer service at Freia. Photo: Private
sea view
– Ban in the bucket
That same day, Holt sent an email to Freia, with pictures of the chocolate and the note.
– I was met by a customer service that I believe is a piece of cake. It was absolutely shocking. I received a standard, generic response, along with a message to send in the product and the foreign object. Then I gave up.
Holt lives in Majorstua and says he could take the bus down to the Freia factory on Rodeløkka and deliver the chocolate in a few minutes.
Race after this: – Unacceptable
On the same day, he sent another email in which he wondered if it was possible to deliver the product physically.
16 days later he received a reply that it did not work.
– They wrote that it was not possible to deliver the product, and that I had to send it by post. I thought that was hopeless. The response time was also long, and when I was told to send in the chocolate, I thought: “I don’t bother with this”.
TIME: 14:56 it says on the note Holt should have discovered in the chocolate. Photo: Private
sea view
– No words
Holt also reacts to Freia not handling better what he believes to be an obvious production error. He claims that Freia did not follow up on the routine failure.
– It surprised me enormously that I wasn’t taken more seriously. Because this note was baked into the chocolate. If I were involved in production, the alarm would have gone off a long time ago.
The 53-year-old is very surprised that the manufacturer did not do more to find out how the error could happen.
– I did send photos of the chocolate and the batch number, and then it surprises me that they did not initiate investigations into what had happened. It’s so shocking I’m almost at a loss for words.
He continues:
– Now this was just cardboard, and I’m not allergic to it. But it could be dangerous if I had a nut allergy and, for example, found a peanut in the chocolate. It’s quite a crisis.
Had to shell out for this one
The producer: – Incredibly sad
Mondelēz, which owns Freia, says that it cannot comment on specific cases and customers, and especially cases that go back a long way. In line with the regulations, all personal data is deleted after 180 days.
– It is incredibly sad that he has perceived our service as poor. We will of course take that feedback with us to improve in the future, says Jonas Pettersson in Mondelēz to Dagbladet.
Pettersson also says that it is difficult to catch all errors in production:
– In our factory, thousands of kilos of chocolate are produced every hour, around the clock, 365 days a year. Despite the fact that we have strict control systems in place, which mostly catch all imaginable deviations, it is still not possible to completely rule out the occurrence of occasional errors, he says, and concludes:
– When something like this happens, we always investigate what has happened and take action.
2023-05-18 16:55:13
#experienced
