An email I just sent to Giant Foods, LLC...

Hello,

I am again contacting Giant about the discontinuation of Cedarific brand cat litter.
This is the fourth time I'm making contact with you about this.
I've spoken to the call center in Georgia twice and just got off the phone with the corporate headquarters in Carlisle.
I'm emailing you to make good and sure someone hears me about this.

I started shopping in Giant grocery stores about two years ago.

I happened to go into one once with a friend of mine and, while in there, I noticed the Cedarific brand of cat litter.
Having many cats (I live on a farm), I decided to give it a try.

I loved it.
Absolutely LOVED the stuff.
I've never used a brand of cat litter that works as well.

For a while, I'd go into Giant specifically just for Cedarific.
Then, I finally wised up, got a Bonus Card and gave up all other grocery stores in favor of shopping at Giant.
I even stopped buying any pet products at Wal-Mart and gave all my business to Giant.

Just to let you know... I own four dogs, too many cats to count, various birds, horses, a hamster... the list goes on.
I spend a considerable amount of money on my pets each week, let alone month.
(I tend to try not to really think too much about it,lest I realize how excessive it really is...)

Anyway...

I went into the Gettysburg Giant Tuesday night, I think it was, again SPECIFICALLY to get the usual three or four bags of Cedarific, like I always do.

I was beyond angered to find out that Giant is planning on discontinuing to stock and sell Cedarific.

I was given a few comment cards by the night manager so that I could communicate my displeasure about this with "corporate".
(As you can probably tell by now, I decided to take a more direct and immediate route.)

There was also an 800 number on them, which I called right away.

I came home (with a bag of clay-based, dusty, and doesn't-work-very-well Tidy Cat cat litter) and decided to find out what gives with this whole situation.
So, I called the two Giant stores in Hanover to see if they, too, were going to stop stocking and selling Cedarific.

The answer is "yes".

I was also told by the manager of one of those stores that there are only two reasons why Giant would do this.

1.) The company had stopped production of said product, or...
2.) Giant didn't sell enough of it to make to worth it.

So, I then looked up Nepco, the company that makes Cedarific, online and they're not stopping production, so I'm left to believe that the reason for the discontinuation is that Giant isn't selling enough to make it worth it.

That made me even more angry.

The reason for that is because in the Gettysburg store, they have YARDS of shelf space for the clay-based litter products from the floor to mid-chest level, yet the Cedarific was relegated to a shelf ABOVE MY EYE LEVEL (and I'm 5'8"), with only enough shelf space for two stacks with only three bags in each stack for a total of SIX bags being available to be sold at any given time.

I don't know how they do it in the Hanover stores, but my experience with how much was available was much the same as it was back in the Bucks County Giant where I found Cedarific in the first place before I moved to Gettysburg.

So, that makes dropping it for lack of sales completely unfair.

Maybe if there was room made for more of it to be on the shelves, and at a more reasonable level like the other brands, more WOULD be sold.

I called Nepco today, too, to see if Cedarific is sold anywhere else in my area. When I told the lady who answered what I wanted, she said, "Oh my. You're about the fifth or sixth person who has called about this today."

I asked if they were all from the Gettysburg area or what and she said they were.

Then, I told her what is going on and told her to go ahead and give anyone else from this area who calls my email address so that we can organize, if necessary, to try to put a stop to this.

I found out that, yes, Cedarific IS sold at the same Agway where I buy my horse feed, so I am relived about that.
BUT...
I'm still highly annoyed about this turn of events at Giant.

I don't feel like the product was given any kind of fair chance in the first place.
Plus, Giant is open 24 hours and Agway isn't.
Besides which, when I was able to buy Cedarific (as well as all my other pet needs) at Giant, there was the Bonus Card discount, which really helped me out a LOT.

In fact, I am SO angry about this, that if it does happen, if Giant DOES discontinue Cedarific, if Giant forces me to go elsewhere for this brand of cat litter, I plan on going elsewhere for all my other pet product needs as well.

I'm not completely stupid, however, and I do plan to keep GROCERY shopping at Giant, but I also feel like if Giant wants to do this, I want to do do something "not nice or fair" in return, frankly.

I mean, it WAS because of Cedarific that I became a Giant shopper in the first place and if I have to go somewhere else for that, I may as well go on back to the Wal-Mart across the street for everything else "pet" that I need.

Not to mention the fact that I've been telling other cat owners, shelters, kennels that board cats and PAWS (pawsofpa.org) about Cedarific since I started using it. I've also spoken of it on my website and I have no problem with expending the same amount of energy, or more, telling everybody I come across about the tragic mistake Giant is making with this wonderful product AND where it is still available.
Yes, I am THAT upset by this.

I also recommend Giant to anyone who asks me where to go to get good prices and quality on groceries and while I'd never bad mouth you about anything except this Cedarific situation, and even then, it wouldn't be bad mouthing you as much as simply telling the COMPLETE and unvarnished truth which is that the product wasn't given a fair chance and you didn't care when people complained about it, I will stop recommending Giant as THE grocery store to patronize.

I feed a family of three adults and one teenager with a HUGE appetite and I do get asked often how I manage to do so and not go broke.
I've always answered by saying "I go to Giant and you should too and here's why", then I tell them all the reasons why I like Giant so much (til now).
And, there IS a Weiss market right down the road....

Now, on one hand, I'm sorry I sound so pissed off, but, on the other hand, I AM "so pissed off" about this.

I don't know how else, except BEGGING you to reconsider this horrible decision (which I'm not above doing, by the way), to get you (as in "Giant, the corporation", not "you" specifically who is reading this) to reconsider.

Please, don't do this.
Don't make me have to go somewhere else.
Don't deny this product a fair chance, and by that I mean better placement, more available stock and a little time with the new circumstances.

It's a really, really good cat litter.
It doesn't weigh as much as the clay-based stuff for the same sized bags, it smells wonderful and lasts longer than ANY other brand.
And, yes, if I HAVE to, I will go to Agway for it, as opposed to switching to a brand Giant does offer.
It's THAT good.

Please reconsider this decision and thank you for your time in reading this.

Respectfully, yet really still annoyed,

my contact info

So.
What do y'all think?
I wasn't too pissy, was I?

Let me know.

Back to cleaning...

Peace

Update less than an hour later...

The manager of the Gettysburg store just called me.
Poor guy.
I already knew it wasn't HIM who decided to do this, but he did decide to call me.
He said they're looking into getting it back and had tried contacting the person responsible at corporate, but hadn't heard back yet from them.
THEN, I got an email from that twit (at corporate), saying she'd (ugh) be out of the office til Monday.
So, the score is 1 for the G'burg store and 1 against "corporate", so far.
The manager of the G'burg store said he WILL contact me again when he has more info.
The lil sweetie....
*cheeky grin*
(Y'all watch. I'mina be solely responsible for getting that shit back... and loving it when I do, too.)

Posted by: Stevie at 04:43 PM

Comments

Posted by: assrot at November 03, 2006 08:29 AM (ARCEn)

Posted by: BlogDog at November 03, 2006 05:34 PM (iJi1A)

Posted by: John at April 02, 2007 01:14 PM (t7ytf)

Processing 0.01, elapsed 0.01 seconds.
18 queries taking 0.0083 seconds, 11 records returned.
Page size 11 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.