July 11, 2000
 
This is an open letter to everyone on the FML and may be copied and
downloaded to other ferret owners and enthusiasts without changes.
 
Recently, we at Performance Foods, Inc., encountered a problem with the
quality control of our products.  We immediately pulled all questionable
product from our distribution chain as we did not feel this product met
our rigid standards.  We also needed to research the problem to identify
what had happened as we had never encountered this before.
 
To isolate the problem we needed to check every supplier, plant production
techniques, make extensive lab analyses and many other smaller details.
While we were unhappy about not having product available to you, our
customer, and to your pet ferrets, we were not willing to jeopardize our
quality standards just to place product on the shelf.  Our commitment has
always been the most nutritionally complete and balanced ferret food
available to you, with no exceptions!  We now have identified the
problemand have corrected it to meet our stringent company standards.
 
Dr. Willard will be at the plant for the next production run.  We have
orders from our distributors, which will be filled as soon as new product
is manufactured.  We anticipate that you should see both Totally Ferret(r)
products in your retail outlet by the last week of July.
 
While we know this was inconvenient to you and you cannot stop feeding
your ferrets, we also know you appreciate the extra steps we have taken to
protect your fuzzies.  We respectfully apologize for the inconvenience
this has caused and thank you for your personal concern to both our
situation and to us.  It helped us more than you will ever know.  May we
again extend our gratitude to the best pet owners in the world---ferret
people!
 
Sincerely,
 
Dr. Tom and Patricia Willard
and our entire Staff,
makers of Totally Ferret=AE
 
/pbk
[Posted in FML issue 3113]