Home Chef

I do want to begin this post by saying that the people at Home Chef have been wonderful. I really wish I could say the same about the company they have hired to deliver their product in my area. I have no idea how they chose the delivery company or how wide an area this delivery company covers for them. I only know my experience with them. I will not name the delivery company so don't ask. I am not going to open that particular can of worms.

So I was really excited to try Home Chef, it was one of the first of the meal delivery companies I heard about. One of the couples I watch on YouTube gets meals from them and has wonderful things to say about the foods they get. I have to admit the meals they have shared on their Vlogs played a part in me wanting to go on this adventure of trying the different meal kits.

I have now tried twice to receive my kits from Home Chef and so far I have completely stuck out at actually getting a box delivered to me in time to use it.

The first time (almost a month ago now) I picked out my 2 meals and they both looked amazing. I paid my money and everything looked good. I was very excited when I got the tracking information on my package the morning of the expected delivery. Everything seemed to be good to go. Then the delivery day/night came and went with no package arriving at my home. I looked online at the tracking and for over an hour after the latest expected delivery time it still said my package was out for delivery. Then the tracking changed and told me there was a problem with delivery and it would be delivered the next day. Hmmmmm...... this just didn't sound good at all.

I decided to immediately send an email to the shipping company inquiring about my package (they have the form right there on the tracking page). Late the next morning I got an email back telling me that they had misplaced my package and were searching their facility for it and it would be delivered as soon as possible. Mind you we are in the middle of a heat wave here in Oregon and my box was supposed to contain a beautiful piece of salmon! Not a good thing at all.

I decided to contact Home Chef to see if they would be able to resolve this issue. I talked to a wonderful customer service representative, Nick,who was able to at least fix things so I am not out the money I paid. He assured me that if the box arrives today (1 day late) it will still be perfectly safe but just in case he credited my account I can receive another box to replace the one that seems to be lost.

The shipping company updated my tracking to say that my package was out for delivery, then it said it was delivered. When I again couldn't find the package the next day (by this time the food had probably gone bad) there was no actual answer from them Then the tracking again the  told me the package was “out for delivery”  and I got yet another notice the next morning that it had been delivered. I searched and could not find the box any where. This finally "delivery day" was on Friday for a box that should have arrived on Wednesday.

I picked out 2 new dishes to be delivered 2 weeks later and again they looked amazing. I was truly excited at the thought of trying them. I was also a bit apprehensive about the delivery.

Between the time the first box was supposed to be delivered and the day I was supposed to receive the second box (in excess of a week and a half past the original delivery day) I actually did finally find the first box. It was in the ditch along the road, not the road I live on mind you the next one over. It was partly covered by blackberry bushes and very hard to retrieve. It was really amazing I actually saw it at all, but as soon as I did I just had a feeling it was either my Home Chef box or one belonging to one of my neighbors. I pulled over and checked the box and it was indeed my shipment. It was over a quarter mile from the end of my driveway! It also smelt like rotting food because that was exactly what was contained inside of it. I did load it into my truck and bring it home. I didn't want to leave it littering the road with my name and address on it. I will have to now dispose of it properly (it is sitting on my back porch in the meantime)

The day my second try at getting a Home Chef order I kept track of my tracking information. I checked it often throughout the day and evening. The Home Chef page says the package should arrive by 9 PM on the delivery day. I finally gave up at 10 and went to bed. The next morning I checked the tracking again and it said that my package was still out for delivery. I decided to drive down to where I had found the last box just in case it was there, it wasn't. 

 

Around 8 or 9 in the morning I got a message that the box had been delivered the night before and at this point the tracking was updated to show this also. I again took a drive to the spot the last box was found as well as a drive to the end of the road I live on and back home. There was no package to be found.

At this point I again called Home Chef and again the customer service person (I failed to get her name, I was more than a bit upset/angry at this point) was wonderful. I took her up on the offer to have my money refunded (which happened immediately) and she apologized and promised to contact the shipping company to see if she could find out anything.

So while I would love to be able to post my opinions on the Home Chef product I instead am posting my experience trying to actually even get my hands on the product.

For me this was a terribly disappointing experience, I really did want to try the foods that look so amazing on the website.

Compared to the experience I had with Hello Fresh this was a nightmare. Hello Fresh not only didn't charge for shipping they use UPS who actually can manage to get the package to the recipient. (I think I forgot to mention I had to pay $10 for the privilege of having my package shipped)

In my opinion a shipping company has one job- to take packages from point A to point B. Point A being wherever it was shipped from and point B the address on the package. This un-named company certainly has failed at this and because of their failure I feel I missed out on an fun experience and had a lot of extra stress besides.

Maybe if you live in town or in another part of the country your experience receiving Home Chef would be different but for me I am not willing to try them again.