Filed Under: life
Published On: July 10, 2012
I recently purchased your Stouffer’s Signature Classics chicken in barbeque sauce for use as a work lunch. I’m sure you get plenty of comments on the quality of the food (I was pleasantly surprised by the chicken, a bit disappointed by the potato bake), so I won’t go on about that. And you might receive feedback on your choice to title the meal in all lowercase letters or even the heathen yankee spelling of barbecue, so I won’t delay there either. No, the reason I wanted to reach out to you is regarding the instructions on the back of the box.
I’m sure you’re very familiar with these instructions, but I’d like have a discussion about step number one, quoted below.
Remove tray from box. Cut and remove film cover from potato portion only.
While I think we all can agree that first sentence is spot on, the second sentence can be a bit confusing. If sentence two is taken literally, the user is expected to cut only the potato portion and then remove the cover from over the potato portion. This particular act struck me as confusing because cutting the cover and then removing said cover seemed redundant.
This redundancy flagged a further concern of mine, that common procedure with microwavable meals is to slice the cover film from end-to-end, thus exposing the entirety of the contents.
As I was at work, I was able to request (and receive) the input of an engineer who provided a second opinion. The engineer agreed that the instructions, as written, requested the user to cut the film only over the potato portion and then remove the film from over the potato portion of the Stouffer’s chicken in barbeque sauce tray.
The engineer did echo my concern about standard film cutting procedures.
Since we all share the desire to have Stouffer’s meals enjoyed in the manner they were designed, I propose modifying the second sentence of the first line of instruction to one of the following choices.
Cut film cover and remove from potato portion only.
Remove film cover from potato portion only.
Over the potato portion, cut and remove film cover.
Thank you for your time,
P. Bradley Robb
[Who clearly should not blog on his lunch break]
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