Waitrose - no meat being delivered…..

[FlamingoSocks]

I’m just fucked off and wanting a moan
Ordered a rib of beef from their Entertaining range months ago, to be delivered this evening as the Christmas meat. Got the email about what is being delivered and guess what? No beef! So no meat for Christmas Day, 10 people coming, a house to get clean and children to entertain and now have to try and find a joint of beef.

Also not being delivered - Christmas pudding, Yule log, cheese, booze…. Basically we have to now go and do a full shop. It’s fine, we can, DH is home and we can drive, we are lucky…..

If they’d even said sorry I wouldn’t mind, but the woman I spoke to in customer services was the rudest most dismissive person I think I’ve ever dealt with in a Customer Service context. I’m in a mood now and I don’t want to be, it’s Christmas!!!

How very annoying for you op!

We have Tesco delivering this afternoon. One bottle of Prosecco unavailable and one flavour of Pringles substituted. All the rest coming- but I do find our local large tescos pretty good- subs are rare and usually most things available. I had a bad experience with Ocado ( Waitrose) a few years ago. Got it delivered on 21st and half the stuff went out of date the day after ( even though the website claimed to guarantee a certain number of days. ) They we're very unhelpful when I called to complain -haven't used them since.

Still waiting for my email from Waitrose,usually it’s here much earlier.Annoying as I want to see if anything is missing and go out to buy it!

Our Waitrose Entertaining stuff was fine but lots of substitutions on the rest. Most ok - got bigger versions of what we ordered except instead of 1 bag of carrots we got one carrot. Yes literally one carrot! Luckily easily fixed but just a bit odd!

I fully get why you are annoyed. Ocado let me down one Easter when we had guests over and the leg of lamb and sides just wasn't delivered with no substitute offered.

My Waitrose delivery was almost perfect this morning.

That being said, I cannot see why you would order the main deal (meat) from a supermarket and expect it to arrive? The crucial bits need to be either bought earlier or ordered from a butcher to be collected. I ordered all Xmas meat from the butchers end of November and we collected it today.

If supermarket delivery leaves out cream or cheese you can usually get that easily. Not so much for a turkey or piece of beef.

Ocado is a different ball game though.
Waitrose stuff comes from the store, Ocado is all directly from the warehouse.

My understanding though was that Christmas orders at supermarkets were slightly different and picked directly from the lorry rather than shop floor.

My Ocado delivery on Wednesday evening was fine - only thing substituted was my heat logs, everything else came.
Have used ocado for the last few years and rarely have things missing.
Have tried Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asda in the past but I got fed up with refusing so many substitutes from them.

Generally it's a bit of a risk with a normal order but the beef from the advance-order-only Entertaining range not being available is shocking!

Sorry OP.
If the kids are not little surely they can help out at tidying and entertain themselves?

I must say that I never understood big excitement about Christmas slots. It’s a roulette about what are you going to get and all things missing defeat the purpose of ordering stuff.

Hope you manage to organise something 🙂

I’m going to guess that this person has-been on receiving end if MANY complaints that have been exactly the same….

Not saying it’s right.
But I’m not sure I’d want to be at their place either….

Sainsburys came at 9am.
No Stilton, boursin, pork pie, scotch eggs, 2 bags of parsnips missing, no fish fingers (?)... all sourced at local coop instead.
I only use my Xmas slot for perishables and meals running up to Xmas day (hence the fish fingers!!). I start buying things like Yule logs, Xmas pud, stuffing, condiments etc ahead of time as they keep for ages.
I always order my meat from a local farm shop which is v reliable.

I picked up our M&S Christmas food order this morning and was very impressed by how much was actually on the shelves. Okay it was 9am, but all very civilised. Tesco was also fairly good at 8am. hopefully you’ll get everything you need from a supermarket

The thing is, when you order from the Waitrose Entertaining range, you have to pre order it. It's not (or shouldn't be) just a case of someone going round the shop and getting the items. You order them by mid December and then you can't change your mind.

Not having your Beef is shocking.

15 subs and 1 unavailable for us today, so we got the rest from the shop...annoying, but was preferable to doing a big shop today though!

I had Ocado yesterday, all there, no subs.

in my experience you need to be one of the first orders, when you get closer to crimbo the more likely they out of stock as folks amend their orders too late for them to restock

Picked up my M&S food to order at 9:30 this morning and was planning to also pick up even more chocolate and cake some extra bits but the place was mobbed. Checkout queues were 1/2 the length of the store. Left with my Food to Order only.

Tesco order due later today, can see the receipt and they have substituted an extra large cauliflower (£1.50) with 3 x cauliflower (95p), which is ok.

They also substituted single cream with double cream....🤔 If I dilute double cream with semi skimmed milk will it become single cream?

Everything else is available so we are doing well here! (apart from the dog throwing up twice during the night and once this morning....)

Ours came from Asda on Wednesday and only missing crackers (for cheese), extra special salt and vinegar crisps and a trifle. DH is going out tomorrow to hopefully pick them up.

Do it through Marks and Spencer Christmas food next year.
You have to go and pick it up but you are guaranteed everything you ordered.

I ordered exactly the same OP. Got to delivery this morning having ordered it 5 weeks ago to find it was not available?! Won’t be using them again

That is really bad OP. The special order is supposed to be guaranteed.

It's a sign. Go vegan.

I have to say I split mine the last 2 years. Ordered the Christmas dinner in November including veg, gravy, stuffing, puddings, etc from Cookfood and it arrives frozen and you stick it in the freezer. It comes with a cooking timing guide as well and it's absolutely delicious, every time. Done it 3 times now - DS and his GF coming up in February for a second Christmas. Then that frees you up to do everything else. Takes off a load of pressure.

That's really bad OP. Did they have no explanation for how your beef, ordered and allocated to you cannot be delivered?

Fortunately my top up order from Tesco this afternoon looks fine. I forgot the ham joint for supper on Christmas Day in my previous order so took a chance on ordering it today - plan was for my sister to pop to Aldi to get one if Tesco didn’t have any! There is one substitution I’m not accepting ( peanut butter chocolates for mint ones) but nothing is missing.

I did notice though when I was browsing last night that many Christmas specials were out of stock online, like mince pies, Christmas pudding and tubs of chocolates. I wonder if Tesco have been cautious this year and ordered less stock so as not to have to reduce so much in the new year? I do need some chocolates for after dinner as i forgot to buy any for the family - I’ve been careful not to eat too much recently so didn’t buy any earlier in case I ate them! Still, there will be plenty in the newsagents I’m sure.

Op I'd be interested in what the small print is when you order from the Entertaining range, I was under the impression that the whole point was that you have an earlier cut off to standard grocery orders, so they can get the items in stock and guarantee them? I've never read the small print though.

Seems totally pointless having the Entertaining range and the earlier cut off if they can't guarantee what you'll get, especially when some of the items are in such large quantities for parties / functions. Unless they've changed things this year, or someone somewhere has messed up with customer orders and quantities / they've got a lorry stuck somewhere with the food on it?!

I had my Ocado order yesterday evening
Everything there. No subs
Ocado have been really good for me this year