10 ReaSONS TO CONTACT A FOOD COMPANY

Behind each of the thousands of products filling the supermarket shelves lies a manufacturer with a customer service department just waiting for you to contact them. Seriously. They hire people whose job consists of sitting and waiting for your call or email.

There are many reasons why a person might want to contact a food company. Perhaps there is a problem with a product and you want to contact the manufacturer to ask a question or file a complaint. Sometimes a product is so awesome that you want to tell the food company that their product is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Eating a healthy diet means closely watching what kind of food you eat. Perhaps you want to learn more about the ingredients in that can of soup—what better person to ask than the manufacturer of the product.

Here are several reasons why you might want to contact them with your questions or comments:

You think their product is awesome and you want to tell them so.  Who doesn’t love a compliment? If you like a company’s product, let them know.

You think their product sucks and you want to tell them so. 
That mac 'n cheese didn’t work out tonight? Ruined your entire dinner? The food companies need and want to know why it didn’t work for you. Maybe they can help solve the problem so you’ll have a better outcome next time.

You're searching for nutritional information about a certain product.  You don’t always have a product package in front of you and you're not at grocery store where you can look at the product in person. Those customer service representatives usually know or can find out anything you’d like to know about the contents of their products. Some websites even post images of their product labels. Those are so handy!

You want to find out where you can buy a particular product or brand at a location close to you.  Why waste time and gasoline driving from store to store looking for a particular brand or product?   Either the company website or a customer service rep can quickly direct you to a place that sells their products.

You want to ask a question about their product, such as how to decipher the expiration date code.  Has that can been on your pantry shelf a long time? If it has one of those indecipherable date codes, they can tell you exactly what it means.

You want to sign up for their email newsletters.   Many of those company newsletters they encourage you to sign up for on their websites contain information that is helpful to the consumer and they sometimes offer coupons and other promotions that aren’t available to those not on their subscription list.

You want to find out if they have any coupons or special offers.  Sometimes a phone call is all it takes to get them to send you coupons or recipe booklets in the mail. They want you to buy their products!

You are looking for recipes using that company’s product.  Most of the companies spend a great deal of money and time developing recipes that work really well with their line of products. While it’s not always possible to find an older recipe, you can be sure that the recipes on their websites reflect the latest trends in diet and food.

A product has a problem and you want to notify the manufacturer about it.  Did that first bite of mac n cheese taste a little peculiar? Your cake didn’t rise? Yeast didn’t bubble? They can likely tell you where you went wrong and if it’s a problem in the manufacture of the product it’s to your own and everyone else’s benefit that you notify them of the problem so that they can correct it.

You have a suggestion about one of their products.  If everyone calls and tells them that they eat their cereal while driving in the car, and that it might be convenient if the cereal came in a container that fit into the car’s cupholder, they might start packaging their product in just such a container.

Almost all of the brand name food manufacturers have a phone number, email or mailing address that is specifically meant for consumers to use to contact them.  This information is usually found on their websites under a "Contact Us" link or tab.

Most of the brand name food companies have a web presence of some type. We have compiled an alphabetical index of web links for the various brand name food companies to make it easy for you to locate the company you’d like to contact.

Go to our handy alphabetical list of brand name food manufacturers.

Go for it. They’re waiting for your call now.