I fully agree with Mark, as sea food is produced in so many varied
environments/factories/regions/countires etc. In spite of HACCP systems in
place, the quality issues has not been fully removed, but it has come down
to significant levels. What ever said and done, CUSTOMER SATISFACTION is the
most important in any business.( let be basic raw material
supplier/processor/distributor/wholesaler etc)
When a customer says there is a problem we have to address it, if we have
the attiude, you have accepted, it not my my responsibilty anymore it is not
going to help any one.
Mohammed Sameer
Torry Harris Inc, East Zone office
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Neely <surefish@az.com>
To: <philhoule@bozzutos.com>; <seafood@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: Seafood Returns
> Phil,
>
> Your customers are retail sales outlets?
>
> Regardless, as a customer of any item, I would not want to buy a product
> unless there is a guarantee that if I am not happy with the item, I can
> return it. I think that is good business. I don't pay for a meal until
> after I have eaten it.
>
> Buying seafood is not like buying a product like, say toothpaste. I
imagine
> that toothpaste ingredients are always the same and the final product is
> always the same. You know what you are buying when you buy a tube of
> toothpaste. But with seafood, there are so many variables that affect
> quality: from day to day, season to season, boat to boat, pond to pond,
> processor to processor, and so on. You just don't know what you are
getting
> until you take a good look at it. How can you say, once the trucker
leaves
> the premises, the sale is final? What trucker would wait long enough for
> the buyer to slack out frozen samples to verify that they are getting what
> was represented as "the product"? What buyer is at the warehouse to
receive
> a truck load? No wonder you have had some very angry customers.
>
> As a former inspector for a large buyer of seafood, I saw many instances
of
> beautiful samples presented to us, only to find that upon inspection of
the
> delivered product, it was not the same thing.
>
> So to answer your question, yes, I think you are being too hard nosed on
> this issue, especially for frozen product and if the complaint is due to
> quality issues. You may have a case for fresh product, but there still
> should be recourse for complaints due to poor quality. Your customer
should
> be liable for how they handle the product before returning it though.
>
> What about your suppliers of seafood? Do they consider the sale final
when
> their truck leaves your premises?
>
> Mark D. Neely
> Surefish, Inc.
>
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---- Original Message -----
> From: "Phil Houle" <philhoule@bozzutos.com>
> To: <seafood@ucdavis.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 2:23 PM
> Subject: Seafood Returns
>
>
> > Since joining the seafood group I have found the responses to questions
by
> > members of the group to be very helpful and informative. I'm looking for
> > some guidance in whether to accept or reject seafood items as a returned
> > item from a retail customer.
> >
> > Recently I have had a few meetings with our company's seafood buyers and
> > customer service departments to affirm my position that no seafood item,
> > fresh or frozen, is to be returned from any of our retail customers once
> the
> > shipment has been accepted by the retailer and our truck driver has left
> > their property. This has caused a few angry customers. Sometimes the
> reason
> > for the requested return of product is due to the wrong item delivered.
> > Other times it was the retailer that ordered the wrong item or order too
> > much. The reasons are many but my stance has been that once the retail
> > customer accepts the shipment and our driver has left their property to
> > return to our warehouse we cannot accept any seafood product to be
> returned.
> > I view the retailer as a supplier to us once custody of product control
> has
> > taken place and therefore would require them to have a Seafood HACCP
> > Program.
> >
> > Am I too hard nosed with this issue? You response would be very much
> > appreciated.
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> >
> > Phil Houle
> > HACCP Manager
> >
> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 04 2003 - 21:23:47 PST