Saturday, September 20, 2014

The Berkley - Fireline saga



Last week I was contacted by the the Senior Brand Marketing Manager from Berkley concerning the issues that some beaders have been experiencing with Fireline.  At that time he told me there had been no change to their formula, that there were no EPA regulations on biodegradability that they needed to comply with and that they knew of a bad batch (or more) of Crystal Fireline and provided the spool numbers should anyone wish to return it to where they purchased it from. 
The batch numbers are: A-28-14-3, E-6-14-1, A-21-14-2 and they are all Crystal 6#.

I replied to his professional and thoughtful email by letting him know there were still unanswered questions, such as issues with Smoke colored Fireline, what the "Improved" packaging meant if there had not been a change made, and the fact that representatives from Berkley had replied to more than one inquiry that there had been a change made in their formula.

Yesterday afternoon I received a conference call from this gentleman as well as two other officers from Berkley.  They too were polite, engaging and open-minded with their questions and comments.  They were eager to hear about my own personal experiences with Fireline as well as that of my customers and peers.

I explained to them the problems I had experienced and relayed comments from my customers that lined up with my own experiences.  They asked several questions to confirm and learn more.

They then replied saying that the beading industry is a large and important part of their Fireline sales and that our concerns are very important to them.  They are aware of EPA regulations but they have to do with lead content, of which Fireline contains none.  They said there had been an improvement made to the coating on the Fireline to help with abrasion and while this improvement was originally designed for the fishing industry, they felt it would also be a benefit to beaders as we also deal with a level of abrasion on the line as we drag it though bead holes.

While they were not aware of any issues from their end with Smoke Fireline they were very interested in learning about and helping to solve any issues I had mentioned to them.  As such they will be sending me samples of line to test.  I said I would be able to recreate the same project I was beading when I first experienced issues and would be happy to test each of the samples on that same project and let them know my experience.

I also asked them, once all testing and quality issues had been explored if they would be so kind as to provide me with an official statement from their company that could be shared with Planet Bead.  I feel strongly that they do have our best interests in mind at this time and that they are willing to work hard to solve any issues that may have occurred with their product so that it remains a reliable alternative for us to use in our beadweaving designs.

As soon as I have further information I will pass it along. 

Happy Beading,

11 comments:

Tracy Stanley said...

Nice work Beki...There are so many rumors out there and it is nice to have you put the questions to the Fireline people directly!! I look forward to hearing how your tests come out.

Unknown said...

Thank you, Beki, for representing all of our concerns.

Teri said...

thank you for all the follow through on this issue.

Marsha Wiest-Hines said...

Well done! Thank you!

Cindy said...

Thanks very much for sharing this information Beki!

Dixie Hamilton said...

Thanks so much, Beki. I'll share a link to your post with others who have had concerns about fireline. Appreciate your taking the time to get to the bottom of these issues.

Unknown said...

Thank you Beki. Quite an impressive communication with Berkley. And we're not leftnhanging out here with our rumors.

Sharayah said...

Beki, thank you for pursuing this relentlessly. I appreciate all the effort you're putting into this to finally get some resolution to this ongoing problem.

Marcia L. Balonis said...

Great update Beki, thank you for the persistence and for posting for us all.

Unknown said...

Thank You for looking into it

Shirley said...

Thank you so much for checking into it for everyone!