GLAD Australia cops backlash over ClingWrap changes: “80 metres of sheer frustration”

GLAD Australia has become the second company this week to come under fire for changing one of its iconic products.

The position of the cutter bar on the GLAD ClingWrap box was recently moved from the side of the packaging to the lid, causing unhappy customers to flock to talkback radio station 3AW and social media to vent their frustration.

Many disgruntled customers posted on the company’s Facebook page to say they had changed brands as a result of the product change.

“What have you done to the gladwrap,” one woman wrote. “Why mess with something when it’s not broke? Now you are selling a useless product.”

Another customer from Adelaide said he had “purchased 80 metres of sheer frustration due to the new cutter bar location”.

“A complete moron must have designed this thing,” he said.

“I like my stuff wrapped tight, but now waste metres and metres ending up with a loosely wrapped covering of unravelling and expanding plastic film mess … It is not easier. It is not safer. It totally sucks!”

But a spokesperson for GLAD Australia told SmartCompany the company made a number of changes to its ClingWrap range in response to customer feedback, “with the intention of improving the value and usage experience” for consumers.

“We wanted to give our customers a much better experience and better value, at no extra cost,” she says.

“Before making these changes, GLAD completed rigorous and extensive in-home research in Australia. The results were overwhelmingly positive favouring the changes including the movement of the cutter bar to the lid, with the safety aspect of this front of mind. In fact, more than 60% of those Australians, who participated in the research, preferred the improved product overall.”

However, the spokesperson says the company was taking the feedback concerning the new cutter bar “very seriously” and this new feature was under review.

Come back to Oz and the top story is a ‘furore’ over a change in Glad Wrap. Talk about #firstworldproblems #luckycountry

— Ivan Trba (@IvanTrba) January 15, 2015

Earlier this week fans of the Cadbury Crème Egg were outraged after it was revealed its recipe had been changed. Almost 1000 people have joined a Facebook group calling for people to boycott the product unless the company changes the recipe back.