Complaining elevated to an art form: ‘These spareribs are far too spicy, I want my money back’

Are we Dutch people a grumpy bunch? If you look at the website klacht.nl, you might certainly think so. People post complaints on the site if they are no longer allowed to pay for their smoked sausage at their usual checkout at HEMA, if Albert Heijn spareribs unexpectedly turn out to be spicy, and if there are 25 grams too little butter in the tub. If the news has been getting you down all day, these complaints help put things into perspective.

No little plastic sheets

A loyal HEMA customer always bought her fresh cold cuts there, but lately she has not been quite so satisfied. ‘There are hardly any 50-gram packs left. (…) Not to mention that these days there is a little plastic sheet between almost every slice of meat. This is weighed along with it, meaning I pay more and get less cold cuts by weight than I should actually be getting—50 or 100 grams.’ How much do you think those sheets weigh?

That ice cream was already half gone

When you fancy some ice cream and buy a tub of Ben & Jerry’s, only to find it is half empty… ‘On Sunday, my boyfriend and I wanted to eat ice cream. We bought the tub at AH, but unfortunately it was not filled properly, as it normally is.’ Perhaps your boyfriend had already taken a few spoonfuls in the car? Or was this a light version from our friends B and J?

Pork tenderloin does not stay fresh for two weeks

A major disappointment for Leen: the pork tenderloin he bought on June 6 was no longer very tasty eleven days later. ‘When I opened the package, I immediately smelled that the meat was no longer good.’ He wants compensation—but how long does fresh pork tenderloin actually stay fresh?

Another checkout, please

Having to walk through the entire store just to pay for your smoked sausage should not be allowed. Arthur complains: ‘I wanted to pay for the HEMA sausage at the cold-cuts counter, because there were long queues at the other checkouts at the front of the store. But the lady did not want to help me and sent me to the checkouts.’ As a solution, Arthur suggests: ‘I think the lady in question should be reprimanded for this.’

Vintage curry soup

Gazpacho, pumpkin soup… Unox is keeping up nicely with the times, but are the classics in its range receiving enough respect? Unfortunately, not according to a complaint on the site. ‘What happened to the curry soup? Why is it no longer available? (…) We were already eating it in 1968—delicious.’

Not on the barbecue, but in the bin

Mrs Beljaars bought spareribs for the barbecue, but they were not what she expected. ‘The contents were not supposed to be spicy, but the opposite is true. We could not eat them and threw them in the bin, which in my opinion cannot be the intention: food waste—which we oppose—and a waste of our money.’

Nuts are hard

You are happily eating tortellini with nuts when suddenly you bite into a nut. You do not expect it. ‘In the product tortelloni fromaggio e noci, I found something hard in my food on two separate occasions.’ Kees van Oosten has been through this before. ‘Chewing too hard can cost you a molar—which has already happened to me once while eating olives, which also unexpectedly contained a pit.’

Butter scam

You buy a value pack of butter. You check it again at home. The regular package contains 600 grams. And the value pack only 575 grams. And then you file a complaint online. ‘That is daylight robbery, and Becel is laughing all the way to the bank. Shame, shame—you think you have bought an honest, trusted brand, only for this to be the result.’

But that is not all; there are more complaints about Becel: ‘The butter is too soft; it falls off the knife,’ ‘The lid does not close tightly enough. I have already had it happen several times that I was still holding the lid while the tub had fallen onto the floor,’ and—worst of all—‘When you remove the aluminium seal under the lid, pieces still remain, and when you put the lid back on, bits of aluminium end up in the butter, meaning you have to throw it away.’ Tsk.

Yesterday’s rolls are stale

‘This has happened several times now: your cheap rolls are no longer fit to eat the next day. They are dry and fall apart.’ We would prefer rolls that stay deliciously fresh for a long time—also the next day and beyond, please.

What are you supposed to do with old ice cream?

Cheap ice creams ordered, cheap ice creams delivered, cheap ice creams inedible because: ‘The expiry date has already passed,’ writes Siham El Makhloufi. ‘I am not satisfied because I am left with a large number of items.’

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