Netizen Posted Images of Packet Drink With ‘Black Substances’; MARIGOLD Has Responded

In this digital age, complaining has been taken to a whole new level.

Bad service in a restaurant? Post it on Facebook. Found expired food in a supermarket? Post it on Facebook. Black substances found in a drink? Post it on Facebook, of course.

And this is exactly what a Facebook user did, after she allegedly found black jelly-like substances in a MARIGOLD Chrysanthemum tea packet, and posted a series of images on Facebook after she allegedly complained to MARIGOLD.

Here’s what she posted:

Lest you can’t read, here’s a reproduction of her words:

PLEASE DO NOT DRINK MARIGOLD CHRYSANTHEMUM DRINK.

Two weeks back I consumed this packet drink. Half way through while I was drinking it I felt a ‘pulp’ substance and I immediately spat it out. And it was black, I cut the top part of the carton and there was this black jelly like substance at the bottom of the drink.

I had sent an email to Marigold and had to call them to get an update of what was the contamination about and told them to send me an email update but no one took it seriously.

I had high fever and had food poisoning as well.

Called the manager of the marketing department and her way of compensation is to give me another carton of drink from Marigold. No thanks.

Please be careful of what you’ll consume the expiry date is only next year but it was already contaminated.

And here are the images:

Those are very strong allegations with even a CTA (call to action), and the post has been shared well over 2.9K times since Thursday.

That’s rather disturbing but MARIGOLD has since responded, and it seemingly painted a different story altogether.

MARIGOLD’s Response

The brand did not post their response on their social media; instead, they reached out to MustShareNews.com, which broke the story on Friday (one day after the Facebook post was posted), and showed them the conversation they had with the Facebook user.

Here’s the story behind the story:

Dear Ms Prasashini,

We have communicated a few times since 25th of June 2019 and we spoke again today on 12th July. We are sorry to hear about your experience concerning a pack of MARIGOLD Chrysanthemum tea. Unfortunately, we could not conduct an analysis of the affected product since the affected pack was not available.

Nevertheless, we managed to get hold of a few packs of the same batch code from the same shop of your complimentary drink and did laboratory tests. Quality check report indicated that there was no issue with the products and to-date we have not received any other such feedback. This is an isolated incident likely caused by mishandling or unfavourable storage conditions which have compromised packaging integrity.

Please be assured that MARIGOLD has strict quality control for all manufacturing processes. We appreciate your feedback because consumer satisfaction and product quality are our top priorities.

And here’s the tl;dr version:

• They had communicated with the Facebook user
• They tested a few packs of the same batch code from the same shop and did not find anything wrong
• It could have been an isolated incident in which the packaging was damaged

So, moral of the story?

Check the package of your drinks (and food) before consuming it. There’s a reason why your parents told you not to have any food / drink that has a dent on its packaging / can.