Why My First Order from Edible Arrangements Will Be My Last

Note: I recognize there are a lot of pressing issues going on in the world right now and it was a privilege for me to be able to send a gift at all, but I want to raise awareness about unsafe delivery practices as these can contribute to the spread of the virus, which can be a life and death matter, and to offer a reminder that it’s worth thinking more carefully about the risks of delivery of non-essential goods regardless of what businesses say their health and safety policies are.

I was very hesitant about ordering a gift to be delivered during the pandemic, especially a food one, but I thought that by May businesses would have implemented enough health and safety procedures in response. I was wrong – I shouldn’t have chanced it. Especially in the U.S.

I took a chance because a family member’s milestone event was coming up, and I knew they would be stuck at home and unable to celebrate. I thought, now I can send an Edible Arrangements gift, which I’ve always wanted to do since they are practical and look beautiful but are more expensive than other gifts.

I looked on their website for information about what they were doing in response to the pandemic, but couldn’t find anything. No banner on the homepage, nothing in the delivery information or FAQ. So I Googled “Edible Arrangements coronavirus” and what came up was a Forbes article about how the company had had to pivot to other types of fresh fruit delivery. Surely they were aware of the need to make changes during a pandemic.

I placed the order on May 25 for an early June delivery. The day came, and I constantly refreshed the track order page for progress, but it kept saying the order was still being arranged. I started getting nervous – it was nearing 5pm in the recipient’s time zone. Then my phone rang.

"I got your gift but the delivery person came right up to the door and made me sign for it, so I might die now."

"Oh no, really?"

"Yes, they weren’t wearing a mask…"

I hung up, crestfallen and regretful of my decision to order anything at all. They live with a medical professional who works at a hospital where there are Covid-19 patients, so they are already anxious about both contracting and spreading the virus. Now my gift had further upset them.

A cloud hung over me the rest of the day. What if they did get sick due to this delivery? I thought about ways to contact the company and let others know to be wary of their delivery procedures. It was difficult to find their communication channels since the individual stores are franchises and it was not clear whether the store or corporate was responsible, or both. I posted a comment on one of their posts on their Facebook page and mentioned them on Twitter.

The next day, there was a response to my Facebook comment asking me to contact them in a private message, and now the option to use Messenger was available. They responded to my message about the delivery issue with this:

"we're sorry to hear about this. The safety of our guests is our priority. We have strict food safety protocols and have only increased frequency of our practices such as proper and frequent hand-washing precautions. You can read more about this here: https://blog.ediblearrangements.com/message-to-our-customers/"

This message did not address my concerns about delivery of their products and to me showed that it was not something they were concerned about. The blog post it directed me to (dated March 27) has a brief statement about how the onus is on the customer for a safe delivery:

"In effort to address concerns regarding contact with our drivers, we will be offering delivery (upon request, added to the delivery notes during the order process) where you can limit interactions with the drivers."

This was an unsatisfactory response. I bought phone credit for an overseas call and called the store that had made and delivered the order. The person I spoke to was pleasant and said that it sounded like the delivery person wasn’t following the correct procedures, and said they would make a note for their manager but I could call back tomorrow when the manager was in.

I called the next day and the manager answered but said they hadn’t received any note about my issue. I reexplained everything about my recipient’s anxiety over the delivery, my frustration that they were not doing contactless delivery during a pandemic, and how this was in the best interests of both their workers and their customers not to be in close contact, especially without masks, or require hand signatures for packages when there are other ways of confirming delivery. I was glad to hear they were apologetic for what happened, understood my concerns, and said they would talk with the driver about what happened and make sure they were doing more for health and safety.

I still got the sense that businesses in the U.S. are not taking the pandemic as seriously as they should. Through the conversation, it was also apparent there were communication problems between individual stores and corporate. The manager thought that customers were being made aware of contactless delivery options on the website and that it had to be requested in the notes section when placing an order. I said there was nothing on the website or in the delivery notes area that told me about that. First of all, I would have requested that, and also, contactless delivery should not have to be requested during a pandemic! It should be the default for everyone’s health and safety.

So the next day I looked for the customer service number for corporate, but the Contact Us page under Customer Service on their website gives a form not a phone number. I had to Google to find it (it’s under the Contact Us page after clicking About Edible). The customer service representative who answered said that contactless delivery is supposed to be happening without having to request it. They said they would contact the store, but I already did that so I know the store knows about it. When I said there was no information about the coronavirus situation on the Edible Arrangements homepage or delivery information pages, they checked themselves to confirm and then said they would put in a request to IT to add this. However, I know how hard it is to get changes made to corporate websites so I don’t know if this will realistically happen. Some U.S. businesses appear to be pretending there isn’t a pandemic happening: If we don’t mention it, maybe the virus will go away…

I wish my first experience ordering from Edible Arrangements had been the positive, cheerful one I imagined for so many years. But I no longer trust that this business or others in the U.S. will live up to adequate health and safety standards during the pandemic, so I won’t chance it again.