What is Brandless?
Usually a cart full of food costs an arm and a leg. Add in some organic applesauce, gluten free tortilla chips, and those costs can skyrocket. Brandless claims to make affordable, accessible, high quality products for everyone.
Brandless sells food, stationary, personal care items, household and kitchen items. Many of their products are organic, gluten free, Kosher, vegan, and no sugar added.
Is it worth it?
We really, really wanted to love Brandless. Honestly, we did. But, we ordered a box to try it out, and we were utterly unimpressed. So, here is my review of Brandless and their products. Feel free to comment if you had a different experience with them:
Let’s start out with what I ordered:
- Gummy lemonade rings – Odd texture, adequately flavored
- Maple syrup – Decent, though indistinguishable from any other maple syrup I’ve had
- Maple Glazed almonds – Almonds were soft, taste was ok though
- Salted Caramel cookie thins – Crushed to bits, tasted fine
- Chocolate creme cookies – Real Oreo’s are $2.98 at my local market, and taste much better to me. They are also 14.3 ounces instead of the 12 oz you get from Brandless.
- White and cheddar mac & cheese – It’s a no from me. After cooking the first box, the second one was shoved very, very far into the back of the pantry. We are saving it for the zombie apocalypse – just in case. I felt like it had very little flavor.
- Light brown sugar – Standard
- Lemon bar mix – Standard
- Parchment paper – Standard brown parchment paper
- Hand creme (lemon verbena) – We liked the lotion
- Bread knife – Standard knife
- Cheddar cheese bites – I did not like these. They tasted very sharp, but not in a way that I liked.
- Applesauce pouches – Standard, but the prices don’t add up. My local store sells name brand applesauce pouches for $2.12 (the exact same quantity as the Brandless version)
- Sweet Jalapeno lentil crisps – Inconsistent sizes looked like they would create variable crunch levels. I wouldn’t know though, as mine were not edible
- Salt and Vinegar kettle chips – Could not eat due to damaged packaging
What I received was a poorly packed box, with crushed cookies, smashed boxes, and chip bags with holes in them. The box appeared to have been packed by a toddler. Here is a photo of the contents after removing the cardboard topper:
See the green bag, and the teal one? Those are chips and crisps. Both of them got smashed in transit due to the poor packing. Both of those bags were also very thin and poorly sealed, resulting in holes in the bags. There are some bagged cookies in there too that were smashed to bits.
The boxed contents were not damaged, however, it was clear that the cardboard used for the boxes was thinner than typical boxes. This was apparent by the boxes sustaining damage during the shipment.
Why I’m never ordering from Brandless again:
Companies occasionally suffer from employees who pack things improperly, and I understand that reality. What bothered me the most about my package was that the product packaging itself seemed very poor quality, which made the poorly packed items even more susceptible to being damaged along the way – which they were.
I emailed the Brandless customer service team, and provided detailed descriptions of the issues, along with photo’s. I expected them to care enough about their reputation to offer me something more than just a replacement of the chips and lentil crisps. Because retaining customers is significantly cheaper than obtaining new ones.
But, guess what? They didn’t even offer to replace the two un-edible items. They only offered store credit. This might seem like a deal at first, but this means that I would have to do another order of over $39 to get free shipping. And who knows what disaster would show up the next time I ordered? After all, the issues I encountered could have been avoided with more effort on their end, so I feel like they should have replaced them at no cost, or refunded that amount to my card.
Disappointed in their solution, I emailed them again. The second time around, they got the picture, and they were more willing to provide a reasonable solution. I was happy with the customer service on round 2. But, I was bummed that it took a second email when my first one was so detailed.
Have you tried Brandless? What was your opinion of the service? Was our experience a complete fluke? Let us know by commenting below. We are reluctant to give them another try, but we are open to hearing about your amazing experiences or favorite products that we missed.