Earlier this week, we brought you the tale of a Consumerist reader who was stymied by the presence of what appeared to be an employee ID badge in a bag of beef jerky she’d purchased. After our story ran, the company reached out to our reader with apologies for her “very negative experience” and something of an explanation about what happened.

Kim tells Consumerist that she received an email from an Oberto executive who apologized not only for the “unacceptable product quality” she’d received, “but also for our lack of response despite your attempt to contact us directly.”

“This is not at all acceptable and we are relooking at our processes in both manufacturing and how we address these issues with Oberto consumers,” the executive wrote, adding that he has brought the issue to the company’s head of operations as well as the CEO.

“Further steps are being put in place that ensures this won’t happen again,” he wrote.

Despite the lack of communication, he says her issue was forwarded to the appropriate people and the incident was investigated.

The team found that the badge did, in fact, belong to an Oberto employee, “and that employee was not following proper badge protocol at the time of the incident.”

The executive says he learned that the worker has since left the company, but did not elaborate.

“As I stated above, we take this incident as well as the lack of communication with great gravity,” he wrote.

In closing, he offered Kim a $50 gift card and an assortment of jerky, as well as a return shipping label for the original product.

“Thanks again for your original purchase, and hopefully you will give our beef jerky another chance,” he wrote.

Kim tells Consumerist that she thinks the gift card is “fair recompense,” and says she’s grateful they finally responded.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.