You were a leading light.
You used to provide information about the products you sold in Cafe Revive on your website enabling people, such as myself, the opportunity to plan how much insulin I would need to inject in order to eat at your establishment.
Unlike others (such as Costa, Starbucks, BB Coffee and Muffins, Caffe Nero etc), you took the retrograde step earlier this year to remove this information from your website. Eating in your cafe now has an element of risk to my (and others) health.
I don't have an explanation as to why you made this retrograde decision (even after spending 15 minutes on the phone to your customer care team). All I've been told is:
- The information is no longer provided on your website.
- You have no plans to provide this information on your website in the future.
- If I want to know the carbohydrate value of any product in your cafe I should request this information from your staff at the time of purchase.
I pointed out this only provided me the calorie content of the cake and not the carbohydrate content. The member of staff stormed off to ask a colleague and after much discussion she came back and told me the amount of calories as though this was the carbohydrate content. If I hadn't done a mental check on this number I would have injected a dangerous amount of insulin that would have potentially ended my life.
I asked again for the carbohydrate content.
A rather large queue was starting to form and customers (quite rightly) where getting frustrated and annoyed that they weren't being served. I on the other hand felt like I was being a "problem" both for the other customers and the staff.
Eventually they found an A4 ringbinder which contained a printed sheet for each product. There didn't seem to be any logical order to how these sheets were stored and the staff flicked through each page in turn until they found the product I was interested in and provided me with the carbohydrate information. It seemed much larger than I was expecting (but nowhere near the calorie value!) but given the size of the queue that had formed I wasn't going to question it. I was embarassed enough!
I purchased my food and drink and took a seat.
At this point I did my calculations in order to determine the amount of insulin I required and then I had a panic. What if this number was wrong? It seemed too high for such a small slice of cake. Other cakes I had eaten in Costa (for example) were much smaller. Had they read the right value?
I couldn't inject without seeing this information for myself and so with a renewed resolve I went back to the counter and asked to see it. Once again I got stares from other customers as (I imagine) they were wondering "who is this person that has just jumped the queue?" and the staff didn't seem particularly happy with me interupting them again to ask the same question. Eventually they found the correct folder and flicked through each page (again) until they found the product and handed me the folder.
It turns out they had given me the correct number from the page. I thanked them and sat down. I decided I couldn't inject the amount it stated, it "seemed" wrong. I reduced the amount I injected by a couple of units on the basis it would be easier to correct with an additional shot of insulin later if the number was incorrect than to deal with a potential insulin overdose.
I don't know if the slice of cake I consumed on the day was smaller than the suggested size in the manual; or if the value on the page wasn't correct; or if diabetes just played one of those nasty tricks on me due to the stress of the situation, but I ended up hypo later that day and I had to eat some fast acting carbohydrates to get my blood glucose levels back in range. I suspect it was the stress, but with diabetes you can never be totally sure.
In the end, what should have been a nice "treat" at the weekend turned into a stressful, unhappy experience that ultimately ended up with me in a hypoglycemic state. Not an experience I wish to repeat and so until nutritional information is published on your website (like it used to be), unfortunately I will not be having a "treat" at any of your cafes again. I would much prefer to go somewhere that lets me be safe and in control of my health needs - as I have mentioned nearly all of the high street chains offer me this comfort.
Angry at what had happened, I raised this issue with you on Twitter and you told me to give you a call. I was hoping that when I rang you'd say "Sorry, we made a mistake, this information will be back on our website soon and when it is we will let you know" instead you made it very clear that there were no plans to give this information to customers on the website and despite me recounting my experience, the advice was still to ask in store - to put my life in the hands of poorly trained staff.
You said you'd contact the Wellingborough store to ensure they were aware of the issue, but you are a national chain... what if the same experience I had happens in other stores? What if your staff tells a customer the calorie content rather than the carbohydrate value and your customer accepts this without question? You are putting peoples lives at risk! If I hadn't had the sense to question the original answer I would have injected around ten times the amount of insulin required.
Given you send this nutritional information out to every store that has a Cafe Revive in it, surely it is not beyond the realms of your ability to share this information online with your customers? You used to, why did the policy change? Is this a lot to ask of a multi-national company? You already have the information so please share it for everyone's benefit.
Instead of being a laggard, I want you to become that leading light again. Show the UK how you care for your customers needs and how you understand the value customers place on nutritional information.
With a very heavy heart,
David
Help me to change the mind of M&S
If you agree with me that Marks and Spencer should start publishing on it's website (again) the nutritional information of the food it sells in Cafe Revive, please let them know.
It only takes a few minutes to make your voice heard.
You can:
- Contact them via their website
- Call their customer services line on 0333 014 8555 and select option 4
- Write to them at:
Marks & Spencer
Chester Business Park
Wrexham Road
Chester
CH4 9GA - and/or tweet them @marksandspencer (+M&S)
Thank you.
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