A very bad surprise. At the beginning of March, Nele, a 34-year-old Fleming, had a more than unpleasant experience. A satisfied HelloFresh customer for almost three years, she sent her whole house into a frenzy when she discovered…a mouse in her box!
Sure enough, the animal was right in the middle of cheese, lettuce, tangerines and a piece of meat. “I noticed that some of the bags were damaged, but I didn’t pay much attention to it”, she begins for the Dutch media RTL Nieuws. Then she hears louder and louder noises. Something even seems to be moving. “Under the piece of steak, a mouse then jumped out of the box”, she exclaims.
Instinctively, Nele cries out with a start. Her husband arrives in a hurry to scare the animal away as far as possible. “I was very scared”, she adds. Quickly, she tries to contact the box to complain regarding this situation. On the chat, an employee answers him “that he feels sorry for her.” He then asked if she might still eat what was in the box. “He was probably worried that I wouldn’t be able to taste the contents of the box. But that was out of the question! Everything went straight to the trash…”
HelloFresh also explained that the company will try to find out how a mouse ended up in one of its boxes. “You will hear from us soon”explained in particular the box through its customer service.
Almost two weeks following the incident, Nele still has no news. So she decides to take matters into her own hands with a message on the HelloFresh Facebook group. “I felt ignored and mightn’t understand why it was taking so long.”
According to her, the story might certainly have ended there with a little more consideration. “I would never have posted this story on Facebook if they had contacted me and refunded me. But obviously, it was necessary in order to move things forward…” Very quickly, his message created a buzz on the internet. And his March 20 post now has more than ten thousand likes and reactions. Which prompts HelloFresh to contact Nele. “The box was refunded and I received a card with an apology for this ‘unpleasant surprise’ in the box”she admits.
She adds that she does not want to argue. “I’m finally happy with their reaction. But the fact that it only happened following three weeks and a Facebook message is such a shame. Their communication is really not adequate.”
Contacted by us, HelloFresh declares that “Food safety is our top priority and we take any incident related to this very seriously.” In addition, the firm assures that it “has a long-term relationship with a leader in the pest control industry and together we are closely investigating the situation to prevent this from happening once more.” She also once once more sent her most sincere apologies. “We deeply regret our client’s experience and offer our most sincere apologies.”
