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Thursday, 11 February 2016


If you follow me on Twitter (which isn't a lot of people for some reason) you will be party to my recent enthusiasm for the humble Findus Crispy Pancake. Findus have been going since the 1940s and the name is about to disappear under the umbrella of Young's Seafood. 

Findus Crispy Pancakes have been around for fifty years and hit their stride during the 1970s era of convenience along with such time-saving yet utterly tasteless delights like Smash and Angel Delight when you could prepare a three course meal in a matter of minutes. It was reported recently that the brand is going to disappear from the shops this year. This didn't kick off quite as much as other brands have in the past, and has effectively failed as an exercise in 'negative marketing'. For those who haven't read my old blogs, negative marketing is a term that I think I might have invented for when a company decides to drum up attention for something in an attempt to revive it as a brand. It is usually something that doesn't need advertising because it is a part of life, Coca-Cola did it in America in the 1980s by changing the recipe. This move created an uproar and drove up sales of Coke. The Beano garnered headlines when they announced that Dennis the Menace was no longer going to wear his striped top and shorts, people who had not read The Beano for years suddenly got all pissy about it and the editor decided to relent. 

The thing is that I had never eaten a Findus Crispy Pancake in my life as it is exactly the sort of thing that my mum never gave us. We were brought up on home cooked food and processed convenience was never a thing at all. In fact I was always a little jealous of my friends when I went round their houses and saw that they had Frosties instead of All Bran for example. For a couple of days I tried to find these items and failed miserably so I tweeted that I wanted to find Findus Crispy Pancakes so that I could try them and mentioned (by @-ing) Asda and Sainsbury's as not having them. Later on I received a couple of tweets back.


You may remember from the early days of this blog that I am not a big fan of supermarkets as a rule but I have to take my hat off to both of the above for engaging with customers, especially after Asda followed it up.

Guess where I went next! I had planned on cooking a Findus Crsipy Pancake themed meal for Mandi and me, (they say romance is dead) but Mandi went and bought a load of fresh meat and vegetables so I can't enjoy a 'last supper' just yet. I will have to go out and buy some more anyway because I have eaten both boxes to myself (with a little bit given to Jack) because I couldn't wait. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, having returned from Alexa Hawksworth's open mic night and taken Jack for a walk I live tweeted (surely all tweeting is live tweeting?) the preparation and tasting of my first ever Findus experience. To be honest they were nothing to write home about, they were nothing to write a blog about either but it has been a while.

(They aren't even really getting rid of them, they are just changing the name to Original Pancake Co.).

 Please read my February newsletter here.

The Sunday Alternative Podcast #73 is available from here.

This week's episode of The Random Saturday Sessions stars John Hardy, watch it here.

 
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