- entry 2025/03/25

My first frozen food delivery

Here's my parcel. Yes, it's upside down. That is how it was stored on the truck and how it was handed to me.

A very cold parcel.

Inside, well, we know that parcel carriers aren't exactly delicate with what they are handling. Some padding may have been a good idea in order to stop the stuff banging around inside. I'm aware of one breakage (see below), there may be others but luckily a lot of Picard food now comes in environmentally friendlier cartons which are more forgiving than rigid frozen plastic. Ideally it needs some shredded paper or somesuch to keep everything safe.

Packed worse than Amazon!

When unpacked, this is €65 worth of food. It might be smaller than expected because Picard stuff carries a premium price for being, well, edible. Not that crap I normally buy from the local supermarket that's more a case of "pleasant enough texture, reasonable taste, don't read the ingredients". Honestly, I think some things (<cough> those 'chicken' nuggets </cough>) are only able to be classed as food because there's no actual law saying it's forbidden.
Picard is entirely different. And in health terms, that's a good thing. Unless you head straight for the desserts freezer - that's maybe not so good. ☺

What I ordered.

My freezer, that previously looked rather woeful inside, is now quite full. The nuggets you can see here are not the awful ones.

A full freezer drawer (that's my Bluetooth temperature sensor in the middle).

There's a bit of an art in packing things into the freezer. Quite a bit of space is lost due to the grilles and the shelving. But on the flip side, having the grilles in between the food keeps everything that much colder (and more quickly) and I have drawers that I can pull out to get easy access to what I'm looking for. I recall a friend who popped open the lid of their chest freezer and spent ages rummaging around inside to find that one thing.
If I ever need to get myself a replacement, it'll be the same sort of freezer. Or maybe a fridge-freezer combo. Either way, similar in concept to what I currently have.

Now for the breakage. This was the chicken tikka. While hard plastic is fairly fragile, especially when frozen, it was inside a carton box.

Broken packaging.

The raspberry tart seems to be intact, but you can see from how the sides are bashed flat that it had been through something of an ordeal in transit.

A slightly dented raspberry tart.

The obvious question is - would I do this again? Yes/No/Maybe. The downside is the rather poor packaging leading to product damage. This is something I'd expect from Amazon, not a company like Picard, especially given as how it's my first online order so you'd have thought they would have wanted to make a good impression.
The upside is that the transportation is only €5 which makes it an attractive option.

However the main problem is that, as far as I recall, Chronopost (of which Chronofresh is a part) don't normally deliver on Saturdays and being frozen I can't give instructions to leave the parcel at a collection point. I have to be home on the day of delivery...and I work full time so my weekdays are occupied.

And this? It didn't fit and I was hungry...

Chicken tikka with rice.

Your comments:

Please note that while I check this page every so often, I am not able to control what users write; therefore I disclaim all liability for unpleasant and/or infringing and/or defamatory material. Undesired content will be removed as soon as it is noticed. By leaving a comment, you agree not to post material that is illegal or in bad taste, and you should be aware that the time and your IP address are both recorded, should it be necessary to find out who you are. Oh, and don't bother trying to inline HTML. I'm not that stupid! ☺
As of February 2025, commenting is no longer available to UK residents, following the implementation of the vague and overly broad Online Safety Act. You must tick the box below to verify that you are not a UK resident, and you expressly agree if you are in fact a UK resident that you will indemnify me (Richard Murray), as well as the person maintaining my site (Rob O'Donnell), the hosting providers, and so on. It's a shitty law, complain to your MP.
It's not that I don't want to hear from my British friends, it's because your country makes stupid laws.
 
You can now follow comment additions with the comment RSS feed. This is distinct from the b.log RSS feed, so you can subscribe to one or both as you wish.

Zerosquare, 25th March 2025, 18:33

If you just want to keep things cold, Picard does sell 1 kg bags of ice cubes (item 085736). And unlike courgettes, they turn into perfectly good water once they've served their purpose. :)    I'd try contacting their customer about packaging ; maybe you've just been unlucky.

Rick, 26th March 2025, 08:07

I tried on their "send us an email" form, but the little link to send the message went dark blue for about 30 seconds before returning to normal. There was no confirmation. So I don't know if it's broken, only works during office hours (which would be silly), or if I've just sent three copies of my message...  Modern technology, huh? 🥴

Add a comment (v0.12) [help?] . . . try the comment feed!
		Your name
		Your email	(optional)
		Validation	Are you real? Please type 78930 backwards.
		UK resident	Check to verify that you are NOT a UK resident.
		Your comment