Open letter to IKEA United Kingdom
As a Swedish ex-pat in the UK, I (and I'm sure many other Swedes) have come to rely on IKEA to bring the flavours from back home, especially around Christmas. Certain things you just can't get in UK supermarkets. One of these things is the traditional Swedish Christmas beverage julmust. I've lived in the UK since 2004 and we have always been able to buy small bottles of julmust from October to about December at our local IKEA store in Nottingham. The only issue has been that the closer it is to Christmas, the more likely it's been sold out.
This year, we went in October and the Christmas decorations were out in the store, as were the Christmas foods in the Food Market. Except there were no tins of gingerbread to be had (there were cardboard boxes, though, luckily), no chilled gingerbread dough, and - most annoyingly - no julmust. We asked about it, staff said they had got all the Christmas products they were going to have. We went back over the weekend, thinking that maybe they just didn't have anything in October because it was a bit early, but no, still nothing. This suggests that IKEA has simply stopped selling it, which is very disappointing.
I can tell, simply from looking at the products on offer in general, that you're going more and more to own branded food goods (a mistake when it comes to the herring, Abba's is nicer), and as you've not produced own brand julmust, you're not getting any of Nygårda's in either. The same fate seems to have befallen falukorv, come to think of it, and the Christmas crackerbread.
It's a real shame that IKEA seem to put their own interests (i.e. making every food product own brand and if not, drop them) ahead of those of its customers. IKEA takes pride in its Swedish heritage, and if you didn't, what's the whole idea of the Food Market? And yet, the items us ex-pat Swedes care most about because we simply can't get them anywhere else are being phased out. Very disappointed.
Kind regards,
Traxy in Nottingham
(And yes, I did send this to them officially a couple of minutes ago. I'm really pissed off. Sure, I privately grumbled over them only selling 500 ml bottles of julmust, as opposed to the more sensible 1.5 or 2 litre options you can get back home, but beggars can't be choosers.)
Vi var inne på IKEA i Wednesbury för någon månad sen och jag frågade om julmusten. Tjejen sa att hon inte hade någon aning om huruvida de ska sälja julmust i år eller inte. Så nu googlade jag och fick träff på ditt inlägg.
ReplyDeleteJättebra inlägg, jag håller med precis, men vad besviken jag blir. :/
Jag kan bara säga: Dumma dom! ;)
Ja, det är jättesynd! Visst finns det företag som importerar svensk mat åt svenskar i Storbritannien, men vi har inte hittat julmust hos dem heller, eller så var portot svindyrt. Visst kan man be släkt och vänner hemifrån att skicka en flaska eller två, men ... ja, det är ju så mycket enklare om man bara kan sticka iväg till närmsta IKEA 10-15 minuter bort!
ReplyDeleteGod jul, med eller utan julmust! :)
Jag som intekör har försökt hitta nån vän som kan köra mig till den närmaste IKEA. Men utan julmuct kanske det inte är någon vits :-(
ReplyDeleteNej, tyvärr. :( Här är svaret jag fick från IKEA:
ReplyDelete-----
Dear Traxy,
Thank you for your email.
Unfortunately, our Christmas items do sell out and are very limited as soon as the batch we receive has sold out we do not stock anymore until the next year.
My sincere apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.
Kind regards,
Kelly W
IKEA Customer Service team.
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Så basically, frågan är inte besvarad alls, för de säger ju bara att jaa, saker blir ju slutsålda ibland. Det var inte riktigt det saken gällde. Det här blogginlägget förklarar dock saken lite bättre, vilket i princip är precis det jag skrev att jag misstänkte i brevet, fast svart på vitt. Att de bara tänker sälja saker de själva har receptet till (own brand goods, med andra ord) och skita i resten. Way to go! >:(