Saturday, January 5, 2013

PEAPOD'S GOT A LEAK

Peapod is a food shopping and delivery service that uses Stop & Shop.  The way it works is that you go online choose from all of the items available.  Most items that you are looking to buy that you would buy at Stop & Shop are available.

I go to a Stop & Shop located in Forest Hills in Queens.  Peapod tells me that the location they use is above a Stop & Shop in New Hyde Park, which is located in Nassau County, pretty much just over the border of Queens.

I go through the steps to place the order and set up a window of time that the order will be delivered to my home.  The truck arrives and one guy rings my doorbell and brings several bags of food, etc. into my kitchen as I tell him to simply place it on the floor and I will handle the rest.

He doesn't tell me that there is a substituted item and one that was out of stock as he is supposed to do.

I notice that each of the bags are double plastic bags and seem to be separated by the types of items.  The first thing I do is check to see what goes into the freezer and the refrigerator. 

There is one bag containing pork chops.  The chops, as you would buy them, are in the usual type of tray with the "sealed" thin plastic wrap.  The whole chicken, in a separate bag, is sealed in that heavy plastic that you need a knife to cut open.  I had placed both bags on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator so that I can freeze portions of pork chops as well as decide as to whether I want to cut up the chicken or leave it whole.

After putting everything away, I decided to cook up a pork chop.  I open the bag to find that the pork blood was leaking all over the bottom of the bag.  I certainly complained to Peapod and did get some satisfaction.  However, the next day I decided to open the bag with the chicken and make a decision.  That bag was swimming in chicken blood.  Peapod had apologized saying that the seal around the pork could have opened due to the shipment being rattled.   How in the world can the chicken blood get out of that heavy plastic wrap unless a hole was poked? They could not come up with an answer.

I was livid and after a few conversations with Peapod I had told them that I would have to file a complaint with the health department.  They then said that they were going to have their insurance company call me.

It should suffice to say that I had to throw out items that might have come in contact with the pork and chicken.  As a gesture of good will, they said that they would not charge me for that delivery and re-ship the same list.

The food arrives and again I ask the guy to place it on my kitchen floor.   I pick up the bag (single plastic bag this time) with the pork chops and place it on my kitchen counter to check.   Guess what?  You got it!  Not only is the pork blood swimming in the bag but I look back at the floor where the guy placed it and there is now pork blood on the floor.  So I now have to clean up not only the counter top but the floor.

You would think that they would have made sure that there was no leakage.   This time I took photos and video, which I will upload soon. I certainly will not feel badly about filing a complaint with the health department.  Oh...the chicken was not leaking.

According to Peapod, "Our mission is to build a strong foundation of consumer confidence by offering safe, wholesome, and high quality foods from clean, modern, and attractive facilities. At Peapod, LLC we actively promote safe food handling through established policies and procedures, associate training, and educational programs."   If this is true, how does this happen twice and if the second bag with the pork chops leaked on my floor before I picked it up, where else did it already leak in the truck? 

I want to make it clear in the video...I said, "Stop and Shop" when I meant to say, "Peapod".  


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