Dear Sir/ Ma’am, I had received multiple SMSs on my phone in the month of March urging me to buy one box of Haldiram’s Gunjia from Reliance Fresh and get one box free. I finally found the product on March 16 at Reliance Fresh store no.2635 and bought it (bill copy attached). I sent one box to a relative in the US and kept the other one at home to offer it to the guests coming over on occasion of Holi. However, I am utterly dismayed to inform you that I haven’t consumed such a bad quality product ever before from a big brand like Haldiram’s. The gunjia I bought is nothing more than half-baked maida matthi with only a quarter full of filling that too merely a sugar and raisin mixer. We consider Haldiram’s as India’s best brand for sweets, but is this how you create a fool out of customers by running offers and supplying extremely poor quality eatables? Could you please help me with responses to my following questions- (i) Are festivals like Holi, Diwali just an opportunity for big brands like Haldiram’s to make money at the expense of product quality? (ii) Does a brand like Haldiram’s have no time to keep requisite quality checks in place during festive period? (iii) I have been seeing Halidram’s full page ads in newspapers lately, can’t the brand spend similar monies on quality measurement? (iv) Why wouldn’t the customer purchase a product at less than half the price paid to Haldiram’s from a local vendor if such a poor quality product is to be consumed? (v) How do you price a poor quality product at Rs.500 per kg (and then offer 50% discount) when it’s not even worth Rs.200 in local market? I tried Bikanerwala gunjia as well, though priced at Rs.540 per kg it was 100times better in terms of its making and filling. I have been raising complaints over email (customercare@haldirams.com, support@haldirams.com) since March 20th but in vain. I certainly look forward to your responses on the questions posed above.
Thanks & Regards, R K Jindal