So I wanted to do something nice for Mother's Day... (refund, price)

[kentuckydad95]

...for my wife. She always said that she loves covered strawberries, so I found a place online called Shari's Berries. They have great selection and the covered berries looked awesome on the site. Here is a pic from their site:



I place an order with a card from our 3-y/o son, kinda like he bought them for here. People with kids know what I mean. They arrive in a styrofoam cooler box with a ice pack that was long melted. Needless to say, they berries were not good. I tried one and almost puked it up. I email the company, they apologize and promptly send out a replacement. Well, we got the replacement today and I decided to take a couple pics to show how their product REALLY arrives:

Note the strawberry juice soaked through the box and the berries popping out of the melted toppings:


Here is the "top-notch" packaging they used. Inside that UPS bag is a long melted gel ice pack:


Not only were the berries not cool, the were ABOVE room temperature!!! Upon checking why, I noticed a few things. First, you can't use a gel ice pack. They don't last past 6-8 hours. Dry ice ONLY for something as fragile as chocolate-covered berries. Second, the half-assed packaging is self explanatory. Third, you CANNOT ship food via UPS Ground!!! Overnight ONLY!

WTF is with this company? I could ship better then that using stuff at home. It looks way unprofessional. Anyway, my wife emailed them this time. Not sure what she said, but we are getting a full refund. If you are thinking about these as a gift, DON'T DO IT!!!

[harry chickpea]

In all honesty, I would NEVER order strawberries to be shipped. The stores have a difficult enough time with them, as some will go bad really fast and some last for a long time. If you freeze chocolate, like dry ice would do, it can develop a white coating. Freeze berries and they become mushy when thawed. As you noted, gel packs don't last long enough. The price of overnight shipping is astronomical. Put everything together and the place is attempting to do something that is nearly impossible to do, let alone do it well. That the berries were still in the mother is amazing in itself.

[kentuckydad95]

I am sure it has to do with the acid in the berries. I have ordered gourmet cupcakes, meat, etc through the mail and never had an issue. Berries, I learned, don't travel well.

And diamonds? I don't have THAT much left over money...lol

[North Beach Person]

Email a link to Still the One by Orleans to her, too. Damn, that was brilliant on my part.

[TFW46]

If there's an EDIBLE ARRANGEMENTS in your area, they have awesome chocolate-dipped strawberries (and bananas and oranges, etc). They have great basket arrangements too but I usually get the boxes of dipped whatevers for my family. Everything is fresh and delivered the same day it's made.