Nespresso delay has coffee lovers frothing with fury

GEORGE Clooney can be seen grappling for the precious last-remaining coffee capsule in Nespresso’s latest TV advertisement.

And now it appears similar scenes – albeit minus the Hollywood heart-throb – have been playing out across the country.

Furious caffeine-deprived owners of the £700 Nespresso machines say they have been left with dwindling supplies of pods after online orders failed to arrive.

And the delays of up to three weeks, which the firm blames on ‘teething problems’ after a shake-up of its UK warehouse operation, have certainly left a rather bitter taste. The coffee giant has been handed a derisory one-star rating by more than 1,000 people on review website Trustpilot, with angry customer Eleanor Robinson describing it as a ‘shambles’.

The 4 -year-old from Oxted, Surrey, said: ‘You don’t expect to pay hundreds of pounds for a coffee machine and then spend more money on capsules only for them not to be delivered. They just went AWOL – we’ve had no communication.’ Another customer wrote: ‘Terrible company. Awful attitudes. Late delivery, if at all.’

The brand, which has outlets in the UK, is sold in 84 countries with 14billion capsules consumed each year. Capsules compatible with Nespresso machines are sold in supermarkets, but the Vertuo and Original pods promoted by Clooney can only be bought online or from Nespresso boutiques. The firm, which reportedly paid the actor £ 1million, recently closed branches in Norwich and Oxford. And Nestle, maker of Nespresso pods, has said it would raise prices this year. A Nespresso spokesman apologised for the delays, adding: ‘Nespresso recently moved its UK warehouse and a number of system teething problems have unfortunately impacted delivery timeframes.’