Pringles Rice Crisps

 

This is the correspondence, I've had over Pringles Rice Infusions.

The first is my letter to Pringles in Belguim. Yes, the Customer Service Department where you write to is in Belguim.

My local supermarket is Waitrose in Newmarket.

Today they had a promotion on your new rice-flavoured Pringles.

Now I should say at this point that I am a coeliac and therefore can’t eat wheat, barley or rye.

So I asked the demonstrator, if your new product was suitable for me and he said no. (10/10 for him!) So we had a very good look and could just see that there was a very small note that said the product contained wheat starch.

So you put rice all over the product and then say in very small print that the product contains wheat.

Where is the mark that says that your product is suitable or not-suitable for coeliacs? Nowhere!

I suggest that you look at your competitors like Kettle or Walkers.

I shall be reporting your product to Trading Standards because of the misleading packaging and the fact that it is not clearly labelled as unsuitable for coeliacs.

If you want to see the full letter I wrote, it's here as a pdf file.

I don't think that their reply was very helpful, but that is not for me to judge. Just read their full reply.

As I said I would I wrote to Trading Standards when I received the unsatifactory reply.

I am enclosing some correspondence that I have had with Pringles concerning their new Rice Infusions.

As a coeliac, I thought that here must be something that I can add to my limited diet. I am a coeliac, which does get a bit difficult, when you are away from home and can’t cook your own fresh food.

The packaging emphasises the rice, but it is only 26%. The major component is wheat starch, from which most of the gluten has been removed to make the product meet the CODEX level. For many coeliacs including myself, this is not good enough and eating some of this product would cause severe diarrhoea and other problems.

The packaging on this product must be changed so that it says “Unsuitable for Coeliacs”. Walkers, Kettle and other crisp manufacturers do this, so why not Proctor and Gamble? It is just like Cadburys and other chocolate manufacturers saying “May contain nuts”.

But they are unrepentant.

I should say that Waitrose have behaved correctly and warned me against the product.

Again if you want to see the full letter, just click here.

I also wrote to Procter and Gamble, returning their two pound voucher.

Thank you for your totally inadequate reply.

You say I got the wrong information in-store. I did not. Waitrose obviously care a lot about their customers and don’t want them to suffer adverse reactions to the products they sell.

Rice Infusions may be gluten free according to the regulations, but they are not gluten free, which as my wife who is a barrister says, is totally without gluten.

I am not a supersensitive coeliac, but I am sensitive to small amounts of gluten in such things as wheat starch and glucose. For instance, I can’t use most normal cough mixtures and Boots have advised me the ones that use real sugar instead of wheat glucose.

So your product should say that it is “Unsuitable for coeliacs”, just like most of the other snack manufacturers, such as Walkers and Kettle, do in similar circumstances.

I am returning the voucher as I have no use for it.

The full letter is here.

I shall update this as the correspondence develops.