An obituary to Ricola pearl mints
Many decades ago, an incident changed my life forever. My then girlfriend opened her magic bag (so called, because it seemed to be capable of producing the most appropriate thing, from a pen to a sandwich, from an umbrella to a book, whatever was most needed given the circumstance) and offered me a Ricola Pearl mint.
There is something extraordinary about this product. Rather like its native country Switzerland, it’s green and hilly, refreshing like the mountain air, small but intriguing, and when finished, it leaves you with the desire to return again soon.
I was so impressed I entered into a life-long commitment (I also married the girlfriend, but that really is another story) and have been enjoying these mints since. You can find them in my car; in pockets, briefcases and desks. I eat them when driving, when walking, standing or thinking; when I’m alone or with friends. I have been known — admittedly rarely and reluctantly — to offer them around.
The mints are rather expensive, but many of the best things in life are. I’ve also put up with huge price rises: they’ve increased from about CHF1.70 a box to CHF2.00 over the last thirty years. But as the British pound has slumped against the franc over the decades, in GBP terms that’s nearly a tenfold increase. As my Dad liked to say, sometimes in life you just have to get up a little earlier and earn a little more to get the things you really value.
It’s not been an easy product to buy. They’re mostly sold in Swiss pharmacies and the occasional Swiss petrol station. I wrote to Ricola, asking where else I could buy them and offering them my credit card in exchange for security of supply. They replied, “We regret to inform you that our Fresh Pearls products are not available in the UK. Unfortunately, we cannot accept your request to buy Ricola products direct from us. In principle, we do not sell direct or from the factory to private individuals, we sell only through our distributors in the different countries (s. www.ricola.com). Our distributors in turn do only sell in their markets.” So I became the best customer of the pharmacy in Geneva airport, tiptoeing around the femmes d’un certain age with their crises de foie and their problèmes de circulation to satisfy my obsession (I’m reluctant to use the word addiction, because I like to think of this as a two-way relationship between me and the mints).
When the pharmacy stopped selling them, I switched my mint-buying loyalty to the BP service station in Perly, just on the French border. When BP recently stopped stocking the pearls, the only place I could find was an online company based outside Barcelona. In desperation, I wrote again to Ricola, only to be given some devastating news. “Unfortunately”, they wrote, “the Fresh Pearls Pfefferminze are no longer available. Please find more information about our current assortment of pearls in Switzerland on the following link: http://www.ricola.com/en-ch/Products?catId=16037. Thank you for your valuable feedback, which we will take into consideration next time we revise and further develop the assortment. We trust this answers your inquiry and would be delighted if we can continue to count on your loyalty in future.”
My first reaction was outrage: have people stopped eating mints? Is there a world shortage of the mint plant as a result of a plague of mint-eating insects? Has global warming reduced the natural habitat of the mint plant? Unlike every other commodity which just seems to get cheaper every day, perhaps mint futures are going through the roof? Given my decades of loyalty, shouldn’t I, at the very least, have had a letter from the CEO of Ricola, expressing his or her condolences for my loss? But I got not — please pardon the pun — a sausage.
So has ended my 30-odd years of Ricola mint eating. Perhaps one day they will bring them back; one day sell sweets in outlets that don’t also sell drugs as pharmacies do; perhaps even they will export to the UK. In the meantime, I am condemned to a mint-less existence.
