Sugar

"To: SilverSpoon

Dear sir or madam,

I was recently in a café and was admiring a selection of your company's fine products, specifically those little tubes of sugar that one finds in such establishments, when I noticed there was a small number between one and sixteen on each packet. This lead to much discussion as to the purpose of these numbers. Do they signify there are sixteen packets in each set? Do they have some sort of meaning as to the contents? Are they there to inform the waiters on which packets to put at which table? You can see how much furore could arise from this mystery. Furthermore, we were baffled as to how the numbers would get onto the sugar packets in the first place. If they were to go in sets how would the stamping machines know which numbers go on which packets? Last but by no means least, one of the packets completely lacked a number. Was this packet defective? Was it part of some sort of non-numbering prototype? Or worse still, was the café giving out counterfeit SilverSpoon products and trying to pass them off as the real thing? As you can imagine, this has caused no small amount of distress for me and my companions.

If at all possible could you be swift in your response as I fear my concern over the matter might interfere with my sleep. Thank you for your time and understanding.

Yours faithfully,

[Alias]"

"Dear Mr [Alias],

I am afraid the answer to the question is not very grand and actually has nothing to do with us at all. The paper which is used to form the sachets comes into us as large rolls, this is passed through the machinery folded sealed on three side, filled with sugar and then the final seal is closed. The numbers on the sachets are printed on the roll by the paper suppler and is just so they now that when the sachet is formed the two sections go together.

I hope this helps.

Yours sincerely

[Person's name]
Customer Service Co-ordinator"

      So there you have it. I like to keep my blog on the cutting edge of front-line reporting. I might make researching the numbers on condiments into my own little hobby.