An D.
Poor customer service, mediocre food taste and questionable quality
One of my weekly deliveries was during holiday (Christmas). I received a shipment of all seven days meal instead of the usual two separate shipments on two different dates. On the fifth day, I noticed the food had sour ( going bad ) smell so I checked the expired date and realized it’s past the best by date. So the good thing is that the food had little preservative. But the bad part is all three days worth of food are all gone bad and I was out of food. I reached out to the customer service to inquire about why everything was sent in one shipment instead of two shipments on two different dates. The first answer was unempathetic indicating that I should have known to freeze the food (including salad like). So I probed more about the change in the shipment without any notice and the second answer revealed that they have sent out the notice via email. However, everyday I only receive là promo and marketing emails. There was no such email about the special change due to holidays. They ensured me that I should receive email going forward. The following week was also a holiday (new year) and I still did not receive such email. When I asked about refund for the three days worth of food they completely ignored me (not even mention that they would not). So overall, customer service is very poor. The food has more cold items than I expect given Chinese medicine principal of warm food only during postpartum. Taste wise half of the food is good, the other half I don’t really care for especially the noodles (soba, Dan Dan were very soggy) Review updated to 2 star post my 3rd week shipment received on 12/31/2024 because one of the snacks had best by date 12/04/2024 while everything else has best by date of 1/4/2025. This is to show the quality assurance is poor as the packing failed to meet standard check. Updated on 1/3/2025 post response below from Chiyo customer team: lack of attention to detail shows in the response. After my initial contact regarding change in the shipment frequency, a representative assured me that I should receive the notification going forward but again as I wrote earlier, I still did not receive such notification in the following week. That is not addressed in the response. Additionally, service team still ignores issue about sending me an expired item (12/4/2024) on shipment meal on (12/30/2024). Each time of interaction with the service team I couldn’t help but taking off more star.
Response from ChiyoJan 3, 2025
Hi An! We're sorry to hear about the confusion here. Wanted to reshare the communications below that went out about our shifted delivery dates to give our team some time off for the holidays. Given freshness of our food, we did recommend freezing ahead of time during the holidays, and usually have 2x weekly deliveries to maximize freshness of the meals. To clarify on our recipes - our meals also are inspired by TCM and all should be heated warm, but not all are soups as we are most concerned about nutritional density and specially curate each day and week to hit postpartum nutritional standards crafted by our Clinical Advisory Board. Quality and safety are of utmost importance to us, as is treating our clients with support and empathy during such an important time. We gave you a call and hope to help clarify and find a resolution together. EDIT: Sorry we missed that there was an item that had 12/4/2024 as the expiration date. This would have been a mishap on our kitchen team's side with labeling as we do not keep product for that long to send out. It was likely meant to also say 1/4/2024 - apologies for the confusion there. Feel free to give us a call back to remedy this! -- With the holidays, our usual schedule had to be shifted a bit, but don't worry, the regular delivery schedule will pick back up on January 7. You should have received emails letting you know that deliveries for the week of 12/24 and 12/30 would all come at once and not in our normal twice weekly scheduled as UPS is closed for the national holidays. We truly apologize for any inconvenience and really appreciate your understanding! To make sure you can enjoy your meals throughout the week, we recommend freezing them. This will help keep them fresh and ready for you, even past the "best by" date.