Here and there, random thoughts on food, photos, marketing, & customer service

Is it any wonder why Dell is so beleaguered?

So I ordered a Dell, yeah I know, I’m a Mac guy, why on earth would I be getting a Dell. Well the answer is they are practically giving them away. So basically it came down to them making me an offer I could not refuse. I got a “Netbook” with a 16 GB SSD for about $350. I need a PC laptop for a project I am working on, so this appeared to be the right time to add to my collection of over 25 computers. I do own a Dell tower that was supposed to be a Printer RIP for cheap, but the software sucked and I arranged to take it off my client’s hands. I also have another clone PC, but other than that they are Apples, Macs, and a few Ataris

The trouble I have with Dell is I ordered my new computer twice. My first attempt was on March 2nd ( I do have an order number and confirmation e-mail). I was was patiently waiting (this is a computer I DON’T really need) and then an e-mail from Dell arrived on March 10th saying “This order has been canceled.” What’s up with that?? I tried to order again on March 12th, and yeah they have to “tweak” the configuration some, but they say I won’t have it until April 7th. So it take more than a month to get Dell to send a laptop. Wow! How does a company that treats clients (especially an Apple follower) stay in business selling computers when they can get one sent out in under a week?

I can order a custom configured Apple MacBook Pro and have it shipped from China in three to four days. It seems to me that that would be more complex, then some Dell guys in Round Rock, Texas sticking in a 16 GB SSD drive, and slapping a camera into my new Dell Netbook.

Update 1/18/12 This was recently posted in the comments. I have yet to verify on my own yet, but this does appear to be legit. -Dana

Thank you for contacting Panera Bread. With the exception of our Jalapeño Cheddar Bagel, we have recently introduced a new natural bagel base in our bagels that does not use l-cysteine or cysteine. Please note that neither was ever an ingredient in our Artisan breads.

Thank you again for contacting us. We appreciate your interest in our menu items.

Sincerely,
Casey
Customer Comments Coordinator

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Orignal Post:

Everyone like bagels, and I sure do. I eat one almost everyday. By way of an awesome business arrangement we end up with a nice cache of Panera gift cards from time to time. I had been getting the Mediterranean veggie sandwich – hold the feta. By all accounts, totally tasty and all vegan. The only problem is a veggie sandwich is not very manly, and thus not very filling. The free pickle (I hope that’s vegan) is a nice added bonus!

I had taken to ordering an extra plain bagel “to go” in order to top off my appetite later if the veggie sandwich did not completely do the job.

Panera does a good job of listing all of their ingredients on their website, so we knew for instance that the “French Toast” bagel was not suitable for vegans. No biggie, I can deal with a good old plain bagel.

I wrote to Panera a few days ago to ask about more clearly labeling the bagels so people would know that some were NOT vegan. I also wished for some sort of bakery item, as none of the baked goods at Panera are vegan. Sad, they look so good! Damn!

Here’s my e-mail to Panera:

Dear Panera,

You should more clearly label the items that are on your menu as vegan. Some of the bagels are and some are not. Also, it would be super cool if you offered just one vegan bakery item, a tart, a cookie, a brownie, or a cake. If you did, I would buy one every single time I stopped in for lunch or dinner. While I don’t care if it’s gluten free or not, it might be possible to have a gluten free, vegan treat and solve two problems at once.

Dana

Here’s the super friendly Panera response:

Dear Dana,

Thank you for contacting Panera Bread. The mono & diglycerides in our breads and bagels are all vegetable-sourced. Our cheeses, except for Asiago, Feta and Gorgonzola, are processed with non-animal enzymes (Dana says: I assume this is in reference to Casein a protein that is found in milk. It is often found in cheese, and it’s almost always in cheese alternatives).  Please note, that our current ingredients’ vendor has informed us that the amino acid l-cysteine used in our bagels is derived from an animal source.

L-Cysteine is a minor constituent of the bagel base commonly and widely used in the baking industry as a dough conditioner.  It is an amino acid obtained from a number of sources by means of hydrolysis (a lengthy refining process).  The end product is extremely remote from its natural or synthetic origin.

There are many choices on our menu for vegetarians or for those who watch their diet for religious reasons. However, if it is a serious concern for you, or you are a vegan, rather than a vegetarian, you will always want to check ingredients before you order. I have also noted your request to our product development team for future consideration.

By definition, “Vegan” means foods with NO animal products: NO meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy (including whey and casein) nor their by-products. Some strict “Vegans” may even avoid honey, white sugar, beer, vinegar and yeast.  So we do not label any of our products as specifically Vegan because of these various differences of opinion.  We do list all the ingredients of all our menu items on our website (and in notebooks in our bakery-cafés, which are available for viewing on request), so we leave it up to you to check on specific items to see if they fit your own definition of “Vegan.”

Thank you again for contacting us. We appreciate your business and value your thoughts on our menu.

Sincerely,
Alice
Customer Comment Coordinator

Sadly, NONE of the bagels at Panera, are vegan. What? That’s crazy. What’s in a bagel that’s not egg and that’s NOT vegan. The answer is L-Cysteine. It’s a tiny part, but it’s used as a dough conditioner, and apparently it’s pretty widely used. You can read the sicking details on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine

The non vegan and also the non vegetarian forms are most commonly made from duck feathers. Yeah, you heard me, duck feathers. I suppose that’s better then the other non-delightful version that’s made from human hair (there’s some question if this qualifies a cannibalism. Wow!). Now they do process this stuff to extremes, so as Panera mentions in their e-mail to me, the source is far, far removed from the end product, but it’s still not vegan.

Update 11/10/09: Dunkin’ Donuts’ bagels are not vegan either. See this link for a letter that reads like the the one above from Panera. Sad.

This post gets quite a bit of attention from folks searching for info on bagels being vegan or not (BTW some bagels ARE vegan).

So I got word that there was true vegan pizza in Fells Point. With family and in-laws in tow, we had to check it out. We had to wait a bit to get our order in, but when we did it was worth the wait. It’s been about 2 years since I’ve have real pizza from a real restaurant, with anything that even comes close to cheese. This is something I’ve been missing since I went vegan. When one of my son’s friends sent him a text saying that BOP Pizza had “vegan pizza”, we put it on our list. Now I don’t think vegan pizza is what’s BOP is famous for, but it’s nice that they offer it. Some places do offer soy cheese, but that often has casein in it, a common ingredient in soy and veggie type cheese. I e-mailed BOP Pizza to check to see if that is their cheese has casein. They confirmed that their soy cheese is casein free. Nice. Also cool that they took the time to e-mail me back the same day. I told “Mike” that I would be in soon and I was looking forward to it. He said “get ready for the best”. Now that’s taking a strong stance. I guess if Kevin Bacon says “BOP should stand for Baltimore’s only Pizza”, I can take his word for it. I did not have to, as they have about a dozen “Best of Baltimore” plaques hanging on the wall. One of them matches the one I have for MacMedics for ‘Best place to take your sick Mac”. Funny.

I ended up with half of a black olive and mushroom, while my wife opted to go for just plain soy cheese. They also has a vegan soy salad that looked like it might have been a fresh mozzarella thing. We forgot to order it. The pizza was awesome and it was more than what you’d expect for the price. Here, when you order a “large” it really is large. It’s Fells Point, so parking was a bit of an issue, but not a big deal.

We also felt very safe. Two of Baltimore’s finest undercover police offers were there. That was a little bit of shock, when I looked over and say what looked to be a 40 caliber Glock sticking out from under his jacket with the sleeves ripped off. Lets just say if these guys came running after me, I’m not so sure I would have stopped. The guy with the jacket had a bleached ponytail about 18 inches long, and he might have weighed about 240. They kept looking over at me in my muted tone Under Armour and Coyote brown 5.11′s. I guess I did not look like a force to be reckoned while I was eating my vegan pizza.

I stepped outside to take a picture for Facebook, and about 7 or 8 other police officers in tactical
uniforms went in to BOP, so I guess it’s popular place with the police.

I’m looking forward to two slices of left-overs tomorrow for lunch at MacMedics.