When I was a kid, me and my dad liked Drumsticks a lot. My dad liked them so much that one day he noticed Nestle had made the sneaky move of replacing the delicious chocolate “plug” at the bottom of the Drumstick cone with other some kind of chocolate that was just a little bit worse. Feeling by slighted this underhanded chocolate swindle, he decided he wasn’t going to take this lying down and wrote a letter to Nestle telling them exactly where he stood on the issue.
Well, Nestle didn’t reverse their wrongdoing but they did the next best thing: they sent us coupons for a buttload of free Drumsticks. What I learned was a very valuable lesson: if you write letters to companies, they’ll probably send you some free stuff.
Every once in a while these days, I’ll go on a little letter-writing frenzy and send off several letters to food companies I like. I’ve sent letters to Tyson, Banquet, Nestle (for both Drumsticks and Hot Pockets), McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, and whatever company makes Pizza Rolls. Almost every company to whom I wrote serious letters gave me coupons for free stuff. I’ve also written disgusting, offensive letters, with a lesser degree of success, which is stupid.
If you don’t believe that this actually works, here’s a picture of the envelope from Tyson:
And here’s me with the coupons:
I believe they gave me six coupons, each for 50 cents. It’s not a crazy bargain but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Not all the companies sent me free stuff, though. For a while I was making my letters dirtier and more offensive just to see how bad the letters could be and still get me free stuff. There seems to be no limit for some companies—McDonald’s sent me two coupons for free Third Pound Angus Burgers in response to an absolutely appaling letter—but the Pizza Rolls company seemed indifferent to my request to send “as much money as will fit in a bag.” The moral of the story: the less you swear and insult the company in your letter, the higher your chances are of getting some free stuff.
Now that you know these things, why not give it a try yourself? I’ve listed below some popular companies’ addresses to save you some work. If you get something back, leave a comment and tell me about it!
General Mills, Inc.
P.O. Box 9452
Minneapolis, MN 55440
The J.M. Smucker Co.
1 Strawberry Lane
Orrville, Ohio 44667-0280
Nestlé Headquarters
Nestlé S.A.
Avenue Nestlé 55
1800 Vevey
Switzerland
Taco Bell Headquarters
17901 Von Karman Ave
Irvine, CA 92614
Desert Pepper Trading Company
909 Texas Avenue
El Paso, Texas 79901
ConAgra Foods (The company that makes Banquet products)
1 ConAgra Dr.
Omaha, NE 68102-5001
Burger King Corporation
5505 Blue Lagoon Drive
Miami, Florida 33126
McDonald’s Corporation
2111 McDonald’s Dr
Oak Brook, IL 60523
Tyson Foods
2210 W. Oaklawn Dr.
Springdale, AR 72762-6999