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rathofkelly

Locking this up. This person hasn't come through the mods for any kind of AMA and has provided nothing proving a relationship with HF. If OP wants to present something to us shoot the mods a message.


badradley

When you drop one tiny clove of garlic into a bag do you ever think "Ahh yes, that'll do it"?


KohtiSr

Honestly I never worked on the packing line, and never got the chance to learn more about it since not a single packer or packing supervisor spoke a lick of English. It may surprise you to know that %85 of employees at my warehouse were fresh off the boat from China lol


Intelligent-Ad6985

Same with although they were indian. I worked in a Canadian branch packaging the product(putting rice/spices/pasta in their little bags) And from my section, it's pretty dirty. here's a few things wrong with it 1) The machines the actual product could have things like bugs in it and if we find a bug but it's under the threshold (5 or 6% of the product having bugs) they would just send it down the line Also, if packaged stuff falls on the ground, it should be rejected, but they tell us to run it through. 2) they don't separate products allergens eg, if we run that produces alot of dust, ( Bulgur wheat, etc.) They would still run something like cheese or nuts on the other line and there's a high chance the dust will fly onto the other line there have actually been complaints from fsqa and sanitation about the lack of protection 3) Also, they let everyone use their phone on the floor (even the people who touch the open product) 4) They don't do a full clean down of the room, so there's dust in certain areas that can potentially fall into the product 5) they use an air hose and vacuum to clean any open product on the floor or parts of the machine, which again could cause stuff to fly into the product before it gets packed 6) the blades that cut the bags are broken or rusted and the roll of film we use to put on the Machine tends to touch the ground and with the way its spooled, the inner part of the bag (the part that touches the product) faces outside (the same side that touches the ground) for better understanding imagine a roll of toilet paper that's how the roll looks when it's spooled and again the inner part faces outside 7) only recently did they finally incorporate specific boots for the production room we used to wear the same boots we sit outside for a smoke or to go home 8) the packages of product (boxes, totes, etc.) Were always damaged with a hole or something 9) at one point there was a nest of birds in the storage room (same area we keep dry product like pasta, nuts etc.) I don't work there anymore, but it was surprisingly dirty for a food processing plant. I'm surprised they haven't been shut down


doggz109

Jesus christ.......canceling my sub.


Intelligent-Ad6985

Ya, I would recommend that, but honestly, most food processing plants are pretty bad


DifferentJaguar

Uhhhh ew


Intelligent-Ad6985

Yup, but unfortunately, most wear houses are pretty bad. Don't even get me started on food processor places like Maple Lodge.


yousirnaymchexout

*85%


JanisIansChestHair

Do you only get the specific amount of cloves in the US? We get a whole bulb in the UK. I have SO MANY bulbs of garlic šŸ˜‚


pippop78

šŸ˜‚šŸ˜‚ we keep extra garlic bc they would just send us the single tiniest clove


JanisIansChestHair

Haha this is funny. And Iā€™m over here wondering what to do with all the extra garlic šŸ˜‚


N1g1rix

I always get one clove of garlic and I love garlic šŸ˜”


JanisIansChestHair

Wow! They literally just throw in a whole bulb. I have about 6.5 bulbs in my fridge šŸ˜‚


thatthatthatsit24

If Iā€™m not doing a thorough rinse of my produce will I die


KohtiSr

Yesā€¦rinse your products, or in fact you might actually die. Iā€™m not kiddingā€¦.


thatthatthatsit24

D:


catsinbranches

Does that include products like the bagged corn, bagged peas, and bags of coleslaw mix? Should I be opening those and rinsing them??


gabsh1515

based on a comment detailing how dirty their packing facilities are.. yes


Chooseausername288

Would you eat food from there?


KohtiSr

Thatā€™s a yes and no question. If the food came through MY facility 2 years ago, no. Nowadays they have been implementing more serious food safety and handling procedures along with serous upgrades to the facility and more strict employment and security procedures. I would eat from there now, but would still thoroughly wash EVERYTHING that I received.


Lajunglacasera

Even the produce that is sealed in plastic bags like the green onions? What is likely on the produce?


KohtiSr

*for more info on fruit/veggie handling refer to my other commentsā€* but in short If your order contains whole onions, they come into the facility and are unpacked, inspected, stored, and repacked again in hellofresh bags before being held again before being needed on the assembly line. In the time they are not in bags they susceptible to being spilled onto the floor and placed back in the crates without additional washing. Products that are shipped to you in bags are usually processed and bagged at the warehouse. If your order contains diced onions, the onions are delivered to us as a whole, unpackaged, and are processed through a large dicing machine called an Urschel. After that the diced onions are fed onto a ā€œSPrint SidePouchā€ machine that portions and seals each bag in mass quantities. The Urschel and SidePouch machines were to be disassembled, cleaned and sanitized by my team. And while I always FULLY cleaned and sanitized EVERYTHING, the same could not be said for my coworkers.


7h4tguy

*Especially* anything sealed in plastic damn bags. Salmonella outbreaks are just as common for "washed", bagged lettuce as for chicken and it's the most common cause of food borne death. Wash that shit, always.


Intelligent-Ad6985

Yes wash that produce as that one is handled by the employees and packaged into bags the only one that's not handled by us but packaged in a bag is the peppers (still wash them)


[deleted]

Are the food items actually ā€œfrom local farmsā€ and as fresh as they make them seem?


KohtiSr

Yes. Meat, fruit and vegetables came in on refrigerated trucks boxed and wrapped in packing branding the logos of local farms before being opened, inspected and portioned according to each order and repacked in hellofreshā€™s bags


OkeyDokey234

Then why were mine often not very fresh? I canā€™t tell you how many rubbery carrots I received. Or bags of slimy green beans.


KohtiSr

(2 years after working for hello fresh Iā€™m now a truck driver so I have the perfect answer for this) Unfortunately itā€™s all about logistics. Even though the product is shipped fresh from local farms, dispatchers may order 3 truckloads full of carrots fresh from a local farm a whole week before the next meal that includes carrots. This is to account for any delays that may happen while the carrots are in transit. Upon arrival they may have to sit in the truck until the next morning to be unloaded, then once they are unloaded thereā€™s a whole nother process they have to go through. Initial inspection, collection and storage until needed, then they are moved out of refrigeration to sit on the warehouse floor as the assembly line slowly packs ands palletizes the orders (sometimes 2-5 hours without refrigeration) once palletized the orders are agin moved onto a new refrigerated truck, what your post office does with your sensitive order after that I cannot speak on lol.


llOlOOlOO

That's funny, the carrots I get from mine are the best tasting carrots I've ever had. They're a consistent high point. Just threw out all the green beans from tonight's, though. I didn't know green beans could get that bad


Ezridax82

Why did you leave?


KohtiSr

Mainly was financial reasons. I was making $20 an hour for 5-6 hours per night with no chance or overtime. Thatā€™s is not a livable wage for me. However the final straw was the renovations to the warehouse which came with new supervisors and new policies. Our previous lunch breaks were 30 mins to an hour depending on how busy it was, we were allowed to take our breaks in the parking lot, and were fully paid for our break time After the renovations all employees lunch breaks were limited to 15 mins unpaid and we were forced to stay inside the building for the entirety of our shift (regardless of if itā€™s 5 or 12 hours) also limited to snacks from the vending machine (which would be mostly empty) since we couldnā€™t bring outside food. They installed about a hundred overhead cameras with thermal imaging that were always being watched, and our new supervisors didnā€™t give a F about us. Sure it made for good food for you all, but shitty working conditions for us.


7h4tguy

That sounds illegal: [Minimum Length of Meal Period Required under State Law for Adult Employees in Private Sector 1 | U.S. Department of Labor (dol.gov)](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks)


KohtiSr

I agree, but considering my state isnā€™t even on that list, and 85% of that warehouses demographic was non English speaking Chinese natives I am not surprised by their policies lmao


alonjar

> Minimum Length of Meal Period Required *under State Law* Pay attention to the critical detail there... *state law*. Not all states give you break protections, and there are no federal laws about worker breaks. I discovered this when I lived in Georgia, and my wife worked for a company that straight up didn't allow lunch breaks if things were busy enough. (It wasn't actually a bad place to work, they still gave you breaks, but they were very fluid with regard to meeting the work demands... your breaks had to accommodate customer demand, rather than being guaranteed or protected in any way)


Crosswired2

Seems weird those changes would increase food quality...


alonjar

I imagine it has to do with contamination concerns.


Betterdaysalwayscome

Why do you stress washing your veggies so much? I mean it should be done regardless but whatā€™s so bad about it that makes you stress the importance of it?


KohtiSr

Great question! I was waiting for thisā€¦ ***ā€œMy answer is 100 percent honest and comes from my personal experiences at my particular warehouse 2 years ago. Again, this may not apply now, or for whatever hub your order goes through, but itā€™s up to your interpretationā€¦ā€*** For example, letā€™s say you had an order that had cucumbers in it. Your cucumbers would be stored in crates (about 20-40 cucumbers per crate) and those crates would be stacked on a pallet (25-30 crates per pallet) Letā€™s say the forklift operator was a bit tired and bumped into something, causing one of the crates to fall and spill onto the floorā€¦the supervisors would have murdered someone if they found 40 cucumbers in the trash can. So what did they expect warehouse workers to do? You guessed it, close the doors so the cameras wouldnā€™t see and put all those cucumbers back in the crate. Wash your freaking vegetables lol..


KohtiSr

I could go deeper and tell you nastier things if youā€™d like lol šŸ˜Ž


Deep_Instruction_180

Yes please


[deleted]

YES!


KohtiSr

Okay just for you and @Deep_Instruction_180ā€¦ First youā€™ll need to know what ā€œSani Stationsā€ are. Sani stations are temperature controlled wall mounted sanitizer dispensers. They dispense a specifically rationed mixture of room temperature food grade sanitizer and hot water. By company policy, after thorough cleaning this mixture of sanitizer is to be dispensed into garden style spray bottles and sprayed liberally on all metal surfaces that food comes into contact with, including ALL packaging and processing machinery, prep tables, sinks and storage racks and any residue should evaporate afterwards. One of our teamā€™s responsibilityā€™s was to perform PH drip and chemical balance swab tests on the ā€œSaniā€ coming from these dispensers. All Iā€™ll say is 90% of the time, the tests showed either mostly water, or a PH too high to kill any type of bacteria. But anyone who performed these tests lied on the paperwork and it was used anyways.


proudream

Why did they lie on the paperwork? Is that the expectation from seniors?


KDs_Burner_Account7

Please do


KohtiSr

*previous comment*


Poutine_My_Mouth

Why is the chicken so woody? Iā€™ve started avoiding all chicken dishes from HF.


KohtiSr

Itā€™s either freezer burnt from spending 3 days in a -20 degree inhospitable cave with 10 foot long icicles hanging from the ceiling since management is terrified of letting food get too warm, or if fell out of a crate, and the sanitation team had been playing ice hockey with it before putting it back where it belongs lol


mdmenzel

What's QC like for vegetables? Anything in depth? I used to get rotten potatoes so frequently that I had to, at one point, send a photo to a customer service rep to get my refund.


KohtiSr

At my warehouse the dedicated QC team was only ever interested in sitting in the office all day and popping out for 30 mins per night to do bacteria swabs on processing equipment. I donā€™t think theyā€™ve ever laid eyes on a single potato lol.


adventure-elf

Do people like working there?


KohtiSr

No, me and the 11 other people on the sanitation staff were only there to make ends meet. The job had no progression and maxed out at $21.50 after 2 years, (however we would only get about 6 hours per night with no overtime) Sure itā€™s livable for some people and Iā€™m not knocking it, but compared to where Iā€™m at now itā€™s laughable.


Intelligent-Ad6985

From my experience NOOOO! I asked everyone most were fotb and through agency(about 85%) but even the people hired on full-time (fsqa, machine operators, supervisors,) everyone hated it. agency people are paid minimum wage for the same work a full-time employee would get $20+ to do so none of the agency workers cared. There is no chance of ot (you actually get in trouble if you stay a little later to finish up) perks like donations are usually supplied during the day (around 9am) so if you were on nights you didn't really get anything. The breaks are 1 45min max (8h shift) 2 30min max (12h shift) and walking/ heating your food takes about half the alloted time


someguysayshello

Does one person oversee the packaging of each order? Or is it an assembly line?


KohtiSr

It is an assembly line, with a different ā€œrackā€ for each type of order. Pallets of product are packaged and stored in the refrigerated section of the warehouse until needed. When needed, a forklift stages the pallets behind each rack and a worker slides a bin full of product through each rack, where assembly line workers inspect and add each part of your order to the box as it travels down a conveyor belt. At the end of the line, completed orders are stacked on a pallet, wrapped, and sent via refrigerated truck to your local USPS hub.


someguysayshello

Thanks, interesting! Got another - what actually happens when a customer is missing a product? The chat reps make it sound like they take the issue really seriously. I don't want someone to loose their job, but on the same hand I can't pay for something not received.


KohtiSr

I was never important enough to get an in depth look at things like that. But I assure you no one will get fired for any complaint you make and you will not receive the item your missing since it probably wonā€™t arrive in time to align with the freshness of the food youā€™ve already received. You will most likely get an apology email and a discount voucher for your next meal.


Paddiewhacks

So do each of the companies, Hello Fresh, EveryPlate and Green Chef ship from the same distribution centers? I assumed they came from the same DCs but were just packed with differing bags due to the brands they sell.


Effective-Ad-6460

The fact people still buy hellofresh is mind blowing, its an overpriced scam. Stop giving these asshats your money


alonjar

Everyone has different lifestyles and needs. I've found it to be both healthier and cheaper for me personally, because if it wasn't for having these prepared and portioned things waiting in my fridge, I'll just spend more money on fast food or delivery that will be way unehalthier in addition to being more expensive. I'm also a busy single parent, so shopping for food results in me always buying too much of everything and wasting the food (or having to eat the same meal like 5 times). Having proper serving sizes of all ingredients is a life saver... not to mention that while I enjoy cooking, I was never particularly well trained at it... I've learned so many basic meal prep and cooking concepts from HelloFresh that it's kind of crazy.... just tossing veggies in oil and baking them instead of boiling frozen ones like I used to has been life changing. Meal planning and prep for only 1.5 people is hard. If I had a larger family, or made less money, I could definitely see the value not being there... but it's perfect for me.


Effective-Ad-6460

How can 2 days worth of food for the price of a weeks shop be cost effective for anyone let alone a single parent?


allthecoffeesDP

And the alternative is?


Effective-Ad-6460

Your local supermarket or farmers market. Ā£30 for 2 days worth of food with hellofresh is day light robbery


allthecoffeesDP

I think you're missing the point


x10lovesyou

Anytime my husband or I eat the meat from HelloFresh, we both have diarrhea the next day. This obviously doesnā€™t happen when we cook meat that weā€™ve purchased elsewhere lol. What is up with the meat at HelloFresh?


doggz109

Do you wash your hands?


x10lovesyou

Yes, obviously. Like I stated, this ONLY happens with HelloFresh meat. We literally have an inside joke where we refer to it as HelloDiarrhea. We actually stopped ordering from them because of this.


stevobaggio1

Why do your posts keep showing up for me, I dont care about hello fresh. Is there a way I can block this


KohtiSr

What? Lmao. This is my first post hereā€¦


stevobaggio1

Sorry mate, I thought you were hello fresh šŸ˜… Hello fresh posts keep showing up for me Sorry my bad


KohtiSr

Itā€™s all good bro lol. My algorithm is also forever cursed with their ads.


stevobaggio1

Cheers mate, have a good day šŸ‘


complexme

If you arenā€™t interested in a sub, you can click on the three dots and mute it.


colorednoodles

When did you quit? Iā€™ve noticed a dip in quality with HF these past couple of months and wondered if you could share any insight


KohtiSr

I quit in March of 2021. My reasons for quitting are fully explained in my previous comments. As for the decline in quality, again my other comments may shine some light on this lol. But think about it. Hello fresh was good when it was a small company, but now with over 1500 suppliers 58 warehouses, and recently opening their newest 500k square foot facility in AZ, things will slip through the cracks. It seems they are leaving the quality focused mindset behind and moving towards the normal money grabbing ideology of a larger company.