Disappointed with quality of online delivery; supermarket responds

WE were disappointed when we received our first online delivery on April 1 from Countdown Queenstown.

Several of the vegetables ordered were inedible, being yellow and decayed and had to be thrown out. One bottle of milk delivered had a ‘‘reduced’’ sticker giving a price special of $4.23 but we were charged the full rate of $5.80. The expiry date was less than two days away. The other milk container expired within three days.

We are in our 70s and reliant on a delivery service as we have no family members near us to collect groceries. It is very difficult to access a time as Countdown is extremely busy so we have to order things a week in advance to be lucky enough to get a slot, so items need to last for at least a week.

I don’t like to knock Countdown in these times as I know they are trying to do their best, but they shouldn’t dump their expired goods on to the vulnerable. Maybe we were just unlucky in this delivery but I do hope that other older people are not having the same issues.

Kirsty Higgs

Arrowtown [Countdown Queenstown store manager, Jason McQuoid replies:

We’re really sorry to hear about your experience. Our personal shoppers always aim to shop for our customers as though they were shopping for themselves, and clearly we didn’t get it right for you on this occasion. We sincerely apologise for this.

We're still seeing unprecedented demand for our online shopping service. Across the country last week we had 100,000 customers register to use this service, and we’re doing everything we possibly can to increase the amount of deliveries we can do and have every delivery truck on the road possible. Here in Queenstown we’ve doubled our normal number of orders and have just employed 25 new team members to help.

We certainly don’t want to make mistakes. Things are definitely a bit tough at the moment but I can assure our Queenstown customers that we’re doing everything we can to make sure you have a good experience, whether that’s instore or online.

We’d love to make this up to you, and will be in touch directly to arrange this.]

Bees from the birds

A GOOD way to help keep bees away from bird feeders (letters, 8.4.20) is to group two or three posts at varying levels among the bushes, and swap the feeder around. I also have an open dish of sugar water in the open a few metres away from the feeding station, which distracts the bees. An added deterrent this year has been an enthusiastic family of sparrows who have joined the usual tuis, bellbirds and silvereyes. They have little respect for the usual pecking order. Jackie Jones

Riverton ....................................

BIBLE READING: See that noone leads you astray. Mark 13.5.