I'd like to apologise in advance for the query I'm about to make. I'm not generally one for complaining, however my wife certainly is and sometimes doing things that are a bit out of character is the only way for me to get a bit of peace and quiet. I'm sure you have women working there so you can probably relate!

Last night my wife and I decided to treat ourselves to a Spaghetti Bolognese from your 'Extra Special' range for our evening meal. We usually opt for the cheaper 'Chosen By You' option but as my wife has just discovered a bump in her navel which we believe may be caused by a soon-to-be screaming child, we decided to go for a one-off upgrade to celebrate the little parasite's obvious intention of gate crashing my already stressful life.

Anyway, we both enjoyed the meal immensely, except my wife who didn't. Instead of quietly tucking in, as I did, she decided (as she invariably does) to give me a mouth-by-mouth commentary of her sensory experiences, as if this information was likely to be of the slightest interest to me. After tuning out for a while, I eventually tuned back in to discover she had by now successfully convinced herself that some of the horse meat in the Bolognese was in fact beef.

I know that in the midst of the current scandal you are probably receiving many queries of this nature and I am very sorry for perpetuating this idiocy. I'm sure the cases so widely publicised within the food industry are relatively isolated incidents and it is easy to get carried away with the hype and become suspicious of everything you eat. However, my wife is nothing if not completely irrational and presenting logical arguments to her is about as pointless as trying to explain to her how the off-side rule works.

I am sure that your stringent quality checking procedures would not allow for such a drastic error to occur and I have been constantly reassuring my wife of this since last night's meal. Unsurprisingly, though, she won't rest - or let me rest - until we have heard it from the horse's mouth (I'm very, very sorry about that one), hence my reluctant writing of this letter. For the sake of my sanity, then, I would be very grateful if you could therefore give me your best assurances that there is indeed no beef in your horse meat, so that I may pass these on to my wife.

I look forward to your helpful comments.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Jameson