Hello,

Today I purchased a Tuckers Ridge Pie. Overall it was very tasty and I thoroughly enjoyed it, however I became alarmed when reading the back of the pie’s packaging.It states on the back of the pie packet that “We’re up before the sun perfecting our classic recipes” and I got a chill down my spine. Was this a thinly veiled cry for help? Is a product development team at Goodman Fielder being held against their will, forced to rise before the sun every morning, pressured to make what was, in my opinion, an already excellent pie even better?

It goes on to state that they are “continuing our worldwide search for new ingredients to storm the mouths of New Zealand pie-hards”. Wonderful prose indeed, but why do they have to get up so exhaustingly early to do this? Do they live a very long way away from the Goodman Fielder office and have an extensive commute time?

The more I think about it, the more questions I have!

1) Who’s the “We” in “We’re”. Is it the pastry chefs? The team making the fillings? The people who print the pie packets? Or is is ALL Goodman Fielder staff being forced awake pre-sunup? Did you, person who has to read (and unfortunately, probably respond to) this email, get up before the sun today? Was it of your own accord? Given it’s Summer at present, this means the sun is rising at approx 5:40am. Ouch.

2) Are they prised out of bed in the dark because they must catch the first plane of the day, made to scour distant locations for these prized exotic ingredients? (Are they given a decent travel budget if so?)

3) Finally and I think this is the most important question I have: Do they get to go to bed early?

Thank you for any reassurance you are able to give me.

Kind Regards,
Tim Harman

PS: If your emails are being monitored and you’re unable to respond in plain text about the oppressive conditions you’re working under, just capitalise every important letter in your reply and I’ll decode it and raise the alarm.