A customer who bought a can of rotten sliced Golden Circle pineapple was left stunned when he received an apology with a gift card for less than he paid for the fruit.
Stay-at-home dad Paul said he had received ‘the rough end of the pineapple’ from Golden Circle’s parent company Kraft Heinz when they sent him a $5 Coles voucher for the spoilt slices – which cost $6.38.
‘Thank you for taking the time to contact us about your experience with our Golden Circle Unsweetened Pineapple thins,’ a Kraft Heinz consumer services team member wrote.
‘The trouble you have taken in contacting us is very much appreciated and as a result of your report our technical and production staff have been advised of this incident.
Paul described the fruit (pictured) he found inside the can of Golden Circle unsweetened pineapple he bought from a Coles supermarket in Melbourne as ‘putrid’, ‘rancid’ and ‘rotten’
Father-of-two Paul (pictured) said he understood mistakes could be made in food canning but he was flabbergasted to be offered $5 as reimbursement for a product which cost $6.38
Kraft Heinz, the parent company of the once Australian-owned Golden Circle, wrote to Paul to apologise for his experience buying a can of their unsweetened sliced pineapple ‘thins’
‘Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused. We are concerned that you were dissatisfied with our product and, as a gesture of goodwill, we have enclosed reimbursement for your purchase.
‘We trust your confidence in the quality of our products has not been affected.’
Paul bought the 825 gram can of Golden Circle sliced pineapple at Richmond in Melbourne’s inner-city late last month and realised the fruit had gone off when he opened it.
The 47-year-old said the slices were ‘putrid’, ‘rancid’ and ‘rotten’.
He contacted Kraft Heinz via Messenger then was directed to a call centre in New Zealand which was closed. After four more phone calls over several days Peter heard nothing more for a month.
Then last week the letter and gift card arrived.
‘It’s fair to say I’ve been given the rough end of the pineapple by Heinz regarding their lousy offer of “reimbursement”,’ Paul told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I’d like to say to Heinz: fair suck of the sauce bottle.’
The father-of-two felt nostalgia for the Golden Circle brand because his mother had worked at the company’s Northgate cannery in Brisbane and he had visited there on school excursions.
Golden Circle’s parent company Kraft Heinz sent Paul a $5 gift card to reimburse him for buying a $6.38 can of spoilt sliced pineapple from a Coles supermarket in Melbourne
An 825g can of Golden Circle’s Australian pineapple thins, for which Paul received a $5 gift card from Kraft Heinz because the one he bought was spoilt, can be bought at Coles for $6.38
‘I’ll still buy Golden Circle because I’m a Brisbane boy and I appreciate the cannery’s social and commercial heritage,’ he said.
‘And my kids are crazy for ham and pineapple pizza and those “thins” are perfect for that.
‘I understand mistakes happen and things go wrong.
‘I was happy to get the letter but I was flabbergasted at the tight-a**ed offer. It’s less than what the product actually cost and then it probably took up a couple of hours of my time.
‘I’m firmly tongue-in-cheek with all of this but sometimes when businesses get so big they lose common sense.’
Golden Circle began canning fruit in Queensland in 1947, was bought by Kraft Heinz in 2008 and now produces 150,000 tonnes of pineapple, fruit juices and cordials per year.
Kraft Heinz has been contacted for comment.
Stay-at-home father-of-two Paul says he bought a spolit can of Golden Circle sliced pineapple ‘thins’ from a Coles supermarket at Richmond in inner-city Melbourne last month