All opinions about Imperfect Foods are my own. Imperfect Foods has not compensated me or provided complimentary product at the time of this review. Links may contain affiliate content.
What started out as a pretty sub-par experience has turned into reliable products that has replaced the majority of our weekly grocery shopping!
We’ve been getting weekly grocery delivery from Imperfect Foods for about six weeks. Our frustration with food waste from big box stores really had me excited to check these guys out. Being part of a community that values abundance without waste is exactly the lifestyle we’re going for! Imperfect Foods hits every check box we had with the perk of weekly groceries delivered right to our door, so we decided to check it out.
Week One – Not a great first impression
At first, I was a bit unsure of how the ordering process worked or if they just send us whatever they pick and we plan from that. That’s why for week one, I just let them send me an automatic order.
What I received was so disappointing. Most of our produce was smashed and the meat portion of the order was missing. After an email to Imperfect Foods’ customer service team, they replied after a few days saying that they had emailed me that they were out of the meat (that they selected) for my order. I searched my email and also in my account on Imperfect Foods’ website and didn’t find any email that they were referring to. Either way, they refunded that portion of the order and I didn’t feel like fighting them.
Week two – More disappointment
As I’m sure you can imagine, I was a bit hesitant to try Week Two. Week Two’s order came in and we received more damaged produce with blueberries and raspberries spilled all over the box and smashed into the other produce. The peanut butter container also burst open and was everywhere. It was kind of a gross box to open, there were no angels singing Hallelujah Choruses but we just washed what we could off of everything else and discarded the berries. We kept the Peanut Butter and are still using it, it’s still awesome! I didn’t bother asking for a refund on the berries since it was a slight hassle last week.
Week Three – things are looking up!
Week Three is when things started turning around for us in the grocery delivery department. Neil and I both agreed that we would give them four weeks and if it was more of week one and two then we’d go back to our normal local grocery store shopping routine. This week, I skipped the berries and all was well with the box! Beautiful bunches of Kale, chicken sausages, great quality fruits, vegetables, funny looking (but great quality) carrots, snacks from around the world and everything they had been advertising! Imperfect Foods was beginning to look like a viable grocery shopping alternative for us!
Breakfast Quiche 
Airfried Brussel Sprouts and Onions 
Pork Fajitas 
Chicken Cordon Bleu with Green Beans 
Pork Chops and Creamed Kale 
Maple Sausage Stuffed Summer Squash 
Provolone Stuffed Bison Burgers
week four- getting ACQUAINTED
Week Four. This is the week when I really started browsing their online grocery store and making my own changes to orders. We were plenty stocked on snack foods, and vegetables but were running out of grains. I added on the grains package and left off snacks this week. I learned that we can “permanently” discard specific items from being included in the orders and also that we could opt in to always include specific items that we go through fast to our weekly orders (like Mushrooms!!)
week five – packaging improvements
We had family come in this week and I TOTALLY forgot to check my email to make changes/additions to next week’s delivery. I checked my cart on Sunday afternoon just a few hours after their 3PM cutoff time for Tuesday’s delivery and saw that they put berries in the cart again. I was so worried everything would be ruined again with this order!
Thankfully, they started to put rubber bands around the berry packages so they didn’t spill/smash everywhere! We now have a happy toddler now that we can rely on berry deliveries every week.
Imperfect Foods seemed to be taking better packing precautions, Thank the Lord!
BONUS, this week, it officially replaced our major grocery runs. We started only going to our local stores to pick up Eggs, Milk (they have dairy on Imperfect Foods but we go through A LOT), and dry goods/toiletries.
week six – covid-19 world shutdown and panic buying!
Coronavirus Pandemonium! This last week was when I was truly grateful for making the switch to Imperfect Foods and grateful for not being supremely picky on what my foods were looking like. As I’m sure we can all relate, our stores across the world are looking pretty bare these days. Our box was perfect again this week but we did receive a notice from Imperfect Foods that delivery could be delayed and products missing with the new growth in membership in the last week. This is a problem I am JUST FINE with. Neil and I both are so grateful that they have new customers and the fact that not only will we eat, but so will they!!
How’s our food waste impact?
we’ve saved approximately:
117 pounds of Food
4,680 gallons of Water
399 pounds of CO2 emissions
since January 2020…I will take those figures all day!
Check out our Week Six Grocery Haul on YouTube. Don’t forget to Like, Comment and Subscribe!
Check out our imperfect foods haul – week six
Pointers for new members
- Be Flexible! This is a crazy time right now, so be flexible with your orders. Between this delivery and supplementing at the grocery stores or another online platform, you’ll be fine!
- Try new things! We had never tried a summer squash before. OK, we’ve never cooked one ourselves. Through saying “ok I’ll try that this week”, we’ve discovered so many different foods and recipes that we love!
- Be Patient! (and grateful) Imperfect Foods is going through major growth right now and need a little patience as I’m sure you can understand.
- Get Excited! I don’t know about you, but I love knowing that (even in calmer times) I don’t have to fight crowds at the store or rush to pick up things before picking up our daughter from school.
Want to try it out? Click this link for $10 off your order!
IMPERFECT FOODS DISCOUNT
Who are Imperfect foods?
Imperfect Foods was founded in 2015 with a mission to eliminate food waste and build a better food system for everyone. They offer imperfect produce, affordable pantry items, and quality eggs and dairy. They deliver conveniently to customers’ doorsteps and offer up to a 30% discount compared to local grocery store prices. Customers can get healthy, seasonal produce alongside grocery staples.
If you are an individual or family struggling to afford healthy food, you can apply for their Reduced Cost Program to receive a discount off your Imperfect Foods deliveries.
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TERRIBLE co. Demand credit card info before ordering. Sending them emails only gets you form letter which have absolutely nothing to do with your questions. Calling them means spending 1 1/2 hours on hold to get a jerk that complains he has to work too many hours & that he gets constant complaints from furious customers. Today they wouldn’t stop texting me saying that my food delivery was on its way. They even accessed my security gate making my condo security co furious at me. NO. I have NEVER ordered anything from these LIARS.
Oh no!!! Wow, I have never heard of anything like that from these guys. Our experience was pretty rocky at the beginning and I wasn’t impressed with their customer service as well. Seems like they have most of that worked out from what we’ve experienced. All of our deliveries from them now are delivered through FedEx, I feel their delivery is a far worse experience then when they were doing it themselves. The packaging is still a bit off though. Sounds like you went through it with them though 🙁
We had to stop using Imperfect Foods. Anything soft arrives smashed and becomes waste, defeating the purpose. Our last order included fish. The fish was warm when the box arrived, (as was all the produce) and all of the produce in the box now smells like fish. We also got a bottle of olive oil thinking they would put some padding around it or some void fill in the box to limit the hard stuff smashing into the soft. No protection around the glass bottle, so it smashed up all the peaches we ordered. We end up wasting more with them because of the delivery issues. If they would just add some padding and more ice I’m sure it would be fine.
I’m kind of surprised they’re still in business.
OMG!! Who can blame you for canceling!! That was pretty similar to our first experience with them until about week four. They got really smart with their packaging after that and then COVID19 came on. Now they’re reverting to old habits and delivery people not really caring. We’re pretty close to needing to cancel now ourselves or at least until their company stops panicking and really implements better shipping solutions. 🙌🏻 Thank you so much for your feedback!!
Did you end up canceling raisinguprentfros? I just got my first box and like you it was not a good first impression. Broccoli was moldy, had to throw out. Many soft goods were smashed. Berries smashed, cucumbers smashed. Salvaged some onions, some peaches. Had to throw some out. I’m not sure this is very sustainable when it all comes so damaged. Not to mention, my box came 1 day late, which isn’t that big of a deal except it’s 85 degrees outside and I’m sure the box has been sitting on a truck or inside a hot warehouse for days. I was hopping to order mostly fruit and veg since that is what I go to the store for anyway, and I’m trying to cut back on going to the store because of covid-19. But I don’t know if it’s worth it for me when I can’t use half the stuff I order.
Hey Tylor! That’s surprising that there was moldy produce coming your way. That should never happen and I would definitely try to get ahold of customer service to at least get refunded that amount! We TOTALLY understand not wanting to go to the store during these times, in fact, that’s the main reason we kept them around after March. We have had a late arrival once but everything was still cold and the ice packs were still mostly frozen and we were alerted via email ahead of time, so we weren’t too concerned (it’s hitting the upper 90s here in Texas, so I understand where you’re coming from!) I do know that our orders come on a FedEx truck which does have refrigeration/cooling so hopefully that is being utilized in transport. We JUST put together another post on ordering hacks and how we got around the smashed produce and are very happy with the results. Needless to say, we haven’t canceled at all we just got creative with how we ordered through them! Just like couponing, shopping with grocery delivery seems to have some learning curves with ordering from what we’ve experienced! Check out the follow-up post here: https://raisinguprentfros.com/2020/06/29/imperfect-foods-ordering-hacks/
We really, really wanted to love this service!!! We originally subscribed in January 2020. The first few shipments were great (but we selected primarily in season-ish root vegetables). After COVID we had many canceled shipments, but we were determined to wait until shipping had normalized before calling it quits. The overall product selection was great, but the packing was terrible. We ordered enough for 2 boxes each week (or every other week). I cannot figure out why olive oil bottles or canned good were packed with berries in a large box with no divisions. We never received a shipment where we didn’t have to throw out several items because they were mush (strictly due to packing).
Hey Jamie!! We were RIGHT there with you guys! Like WHY IN THE WORLD is there not separate packaging for canned goods, Olive oil, the sparkling water?!? Our few first orders where we didn’t use our new found strategy in ordering, they actually did package those things separately. And then that stopped. Then we started getting the smashed berries, etc (of course!! Duh!!). We just wrote a follow up blog post to this one after seeing so many people having almost identical experiences as we were having. It’s a guide to ordering that you can find at this link. It’s seriously a game changer and we haven’t had any problems since we implemented this! I hope it helps!
https://raisinguprentfros.com/2029/06/29/imperfect-foods-ordering-hacks/
I just got my first box and I was extremely disappointed. The items were just thrown in the box willy nilly. Looked like they were pulled out of the trash and put into my box. Soft items were smashed underneath the heavy items. No regard to how to pack things. I cancelled my subscription. I am not going to waste any more money giving them a second change. I will discourage everyone I know not to use this company.
oh no! That’s terrible, I hope you got ahold of Customer Service and sent photos for a refund. It isn’t for everybody and that way of packing their shipments was the main reason we figured out a better way to order from them in our latest article. ( https://raisinguprentfros.com/2029/06/29/imperfect-foods-ordering-hacks/ ) Thank you so very much for your comment, I feel like all of our readers deserves to hear the good, bad, and ugly before making a decision of what’s best for their fam! <3
We have been getting our fruit and veggie deliveries from Imperfect for some time now, and it is absolutely THE best produce I have ever had in my life. I have no idea why it is called “imperfect” – I think that’s the wrong choice in name – I would instead describe the produce as tasting like you grew it in the backyard – better & fresher than anything you can buy in the grocery store, and definitely the way fruits and vegetables should taste. Since getting the deliveries, I have actually chosen to eat raw vegetables every day because they taste so good!
I received my first and last order today from Imperfect foods. I received a box with a mix of organic and conventional produce. One of the nectarine’s skin was tore off exposing the flesh. One of the 2 red bell peppers had mold growing on the top and both had a gold metallic colored mottling in different spots. Never seen this before with bell peppers (I’ve seen the brownish scarring sometimes found on peppers). The zucchini looked like a dog had chewed them. One of the onions had a greenish black spot of mold on one side. I cancelled immediately after I received this. It’s a bit misleading for the company to claim that their sources are surplus and items that aren’t perfect enough for some grocers. Well if a farmer sends the grocer rotting food or food badly damaged, I can understand why they would reject it. Really disappointed in this box.
Hi Amanda! Thanks for your comment! I am sad to hear about your first box! Yikes, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that bad before! Hopefully you got your money back and sent pics into their Customer Service! I’m super curious to see how their competitors are doing as well, I’ll definitely do a write up on those once I give them a try.
I love the idea of using the ‘ugly’ produce as a gardener I understand imperfection. But my order had freezer burn on all the produce and it was too mushy to eat. It was a costly addition to my compost pile !! Worms will be happy, I’m not.
Oh no! I haven’t ever experienced the freezer burn on the produce, just normal scarring that you’d see in the “ugly produce”. Did you get a chance to reach out to their customer service department and see what they said about it? I’m curious to hear what they thought about that. Sounds like an unacceptable shipment to me!
Overpromising and underdelivering . Glad to cancel
It’s definitely not for everyone! Hope you find a better solution for you and your family soon. Let us know what/who you go with if you try another grocery delivery, curious to see what else is out there 🙂