Delivery Delay and Compromised Perishable Goods

I am appalled by the level of service I have received from Pick n Pay ASAP in Johannesburg over the past few months. Unfortunately, today's experience was the final straw.

At 17:30, I placed an order through the app, which was accepted by the Mall of Africa store. The estimated delivery time provided was between 18:00 and 18:30. However, by 18:30, my groceries had not even been packed. Shortly thereafter, the order status changed to packed and awaiting a driver, where it remained for over two hours.

During this time, I received no communication or notification that a driver had been assigned to my order. It was only after 20:30 that I noticed any movement on the app, and the groceries eventually arrived at 20:49—more than two hours after the promised delivery window.

To make matters worse, the groceries arrived in plastic bags instead of the usual brown paper bags, and it was evident that the order had been sitting unrefrigerated for an extended period. Our frozen items had thawed, and perishable products such as meat, fish, and vegetables had been left out for hours before delivery. This raises serious food safety concerns and places customers at risk of consuming products that may no longer be safe.

I am both angry and deeply disappointed by this experience. If the Mall of Africa store was unable to fulfil the order within a reasonable timeframe, it should not have accepted the order in the first place. Alternatively, the order could have been scheduled for delivery the tomorrow morning. While that would have been inconvenient, it would have been far preferable to receiving potentially unsafe food products.

This level of service is unacceptable. I expect Pick n Pay to investigate what happened, and outline what steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again.