Nutella

I was in the supermarket the other night, browsing through the tinned goods and minding my own business when four people in suits marched up to the shelf next to me and started examining the Nutella on display. I was quite intrigued by them, so I hung around a while to listen to what they were saying. I take it that they were managers of some sort from the supermarket chain, or a wholesaler, or the company that owns Nutella. I never did work it out.

Or they could have been connected with the company that sold the Nutella-knock off that was languishing on the bottom shelf. I forget what it is called, but it is nut-something. That's brand recognition for you - I have passed that shelf almost daily for several years now, and I have bought quite a few jars of Nutella, and I have never noticed the competition lurking on the bottom shelf.

And lurk it does, and lurk for sometime as well. A woman from the group grabbed one of the jars from the bottom shelf, turned it over and announced to the rest of the group (and sticky-beak me) that the jar had been sitting on the shelf for over a year and had expired 54 weeks before. That brought forth some groans from the group. Another jar was pulled out, and that one had a clear band of white around the top where all the fat or oil had separated out and solidified on the surface. That one was also out of date. Another out of date jar was manipulated and found to be as squishy as anything.

All those jars went back on the bottom shelf, so I think that rules out them working for that company. If they cared about their product, they would have removed it from the shelves straight away and tidied up the remainding stock, which looked like a dogs breakfast.

A comment was made along the lines of "We sell 53 jars of Nutella a week and have not sold a jar of this other stuff so far this year". So they could have been from the supermarket.

The thing is, its been at least a week since I saw that group in the aisle, and the crap nut spread is still on the bottom shelf. If they had been from the supermarket, and they wanted some action, they should have pulled the junk from the bottom shelf by now and replaced it with another line of stock.

I still can't think of what it's called. I walk past it daily now and have a look at it and the name just doesn't stick in my mind.

I'm certainly not going to buy a jar of it, but that is probably the only way that I will be able to remember what it is by the time I get home.

I have read that thousands of new products are tried out on supermarket shelves each year, and most of them fail. Here is pretty clear evidence of one of the failures. I get the feeling it is a solid brand in its home market, so they've shipped some over here, and backed it with zero marketing.

Managers who do that kind of thing really need to be taken out and shot.