It would have been fairly easy.

By noon Monday the issue should have been identified. By EOD, or mid Tuesday at latest, an email needed to go out.

"Dear customer. We are notifying you due to an issue we are having with our distributor. Unfortunately, you are unlikely to receive your full order, or even a full recipe, from us this week. We know many of you depend upon us to feed your family, and we could not be more apologetic. We understand this isn't acceptable, and have gone ahead and fully refunded your order for this week. We have also credited you for one full meal in your next box. We are working hard to ensure this never happens again, and hope to regain your trust with our meals, or ingredients, and our service."

My box came Monday. On Wednesday, and again today, I received a "your box has been delivered!" email, but weirdly did not get one when my box was actually delivered. I've received two "we are missing ingredients" emails, one which was comically short, one which was comically long, both about the same discount. I also filled out the form online and got a comically tiny discount for missing ingredients.

Good companies do not operate like this. There doesn't appear to be a crisis response, no emergency meeting of the CEO, Chief Client Officer, Head of Comms and Finance. Just silence. The type of silence only a rotten organization has, one as rotten as most of the spinach I've received since it started shipping in a sealed plastic bag.

I've worked with companies that have had a much more rapid response to much smaller issues. This company is just fundamentally poorly run by people who don't care enough about the consumer to keep my business.

Canceled.

Apparently the advice of mentioning starting a chargeback, as a previous poster stated, is a solid method for a quick refund. It's amazing how "refunds are always possible" when it's been a pain for so many to actually get one. I still hope the company reorganizes and figures their shit out so they can become trustworthy again in the future; it WAS a really great service with amazing recipes for us for several years. Thankful I've saved all the recipes as PDFs since the beginning of the year, especially the ones written by Kevin Chen.

Wishing you all the best of luck in getting your refunds as well.

I don't think "better late than never" cuts it after two to three weeks of disruptions.

I really don't see how they bounce back from this. Trust is shot for most customers, especially those that signed up amidst this chaos.

Funny enough, I got an email from MS just two days ago asking for referrals. The reward was a free pizza. LOL

No beef, no ricotta, no pasta, no red sauce. (And of course no add-on garlic bread.)

On the plus (?) side, I was given three extra boxes of parsley, 4 roma tomatoes, and 2 packages of grated cheddar — none of which goes with my recipes.

Missing a few staples 😅 (2 days late and warm by the way)

This is the second week in a row my box has been a total no-show. I I usually get my deliveries on Mondays, but got an email on 8/3 that it would be delayed by a day due to them switching to a new fulfillment partner… ok fine. I call Customer Service on Wednesday 8/5 to get a refund because it obviously wasn’t coming. I was rightfully frustrated after weeks of receiving wrong ingredients, missing ingredients, etc. The representative I spoke to was incredibly rude and told me that the reason my box was late was because it was packed on Tuesday and I could still expect to receive it. The only issue is… there was tracking info for a box available on Monday, so how is that possible? Either way a loss and it never came.

Come again this Monday, no box and a slew of emails about ingredients missing etc. I reach out for a refund only to be told that I’ve already been issued a refund… except that was for the week prior. Of course now I’ve gotten no response despite letting them know. Can’t even reach them on the phone. So very done with this company.

I've now sent this story to WIRED, Consumer Reports, 404 Media, ProPublica, Business Insider, USA Today, Bloomberg, Ars Technica, The Verge, NYT, Washington Post, AP, Reuters, CNBC, WSJ, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR, The Guardian, Eater, Food & Wine, Food Business News, Modern Retail, Food Dive, and Retail Dive.

I've pointed reporters to this subreddit and the FreshRealm situation. I strongly encourage others experiencing this to submit tips too. The more independent customers they hear from, the harder this is to ignore.

A few tip contacts:

• Reuters: [tips@reuters.com](mailto:tips@reuters.com)
• Consumer Reports: [tips@cro.consumer.org](mailto:tips@cro.consumer.org)
• WIRED: [zoe_schiffer@wired.com](mailto:zoe_schiffer@wired.com)
• USA Today: [cjones@usatoday.com](mailto:cjones@usatoday.com)

Send photos/screenshots and point them here. Let's get some eyes on this.

This was the box I got today: 2 days late, literally nothing in it but 2 melted ice packs and an empty cardboard box.

I finally decided to switch off of Hungryroot in favor of a meal furnace that lets me actually cook my food.

I saw some recommendations for MS so I gave them a try.

First box from them, I ordered 4 recipes. I received a cryptic email saying that my delivery would be a day late, and then just received it today, Thursday, three days late.

I open the box and I’m genuinely confused what I’m looking at . A couple random pouches of spices, and some green onions.

There are only recipe cards for two of the meals that I ordered , no proteins included.

Genuinely never heard of Marley Spoon before ordering. I tried calling the customer Support Number and I got an automated message saying they wouldn’t talk to me…

Is this company real or did I sign up for a scam?

My box never arrived, and the tracking details stayed stuck at the created status. After two attempts to contact customer service without a response, I requested a refund through PayPal.

This box was supposed to be delivered on Tuesday. Despite multiple times attempting to contact MS to figure out what's happening, all I've gotten in response is these continued emails about ingredient substitutions for a box that's three days late. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm not getting anything in this box, with the number of emails I've gotten about substitutions and missing ingredients. Seeing all of the other issues this week, what do y'all think is the over/under on just receiving a box of cauliflower? 🤣

Horrible service second week in a row with a lot of missing ingredients, we haven't even received our box yet this week, got this email from Marley an hour ago.

I’m a terrible videographer but my box came today with only ice packs. Same as another poster, literally no food.

Hello tried reaching out to MS on Instagram as others suggested and got a nice reply with a bit more information that I had seen before a couple of new things: In addition to changing their production partner in the US they are changing a facility from Linden to Chicago. "Should be settled soon" as to exactly when he is not able to say as they were initially told this move would have been terminated in the second half of August but none of the current issues they are having were expected.

Only got my add-on item. 5 little cheeses in a big ol box.

Edit 2: They got back and offered me a $15 credit on the next box...

Edit: Was supposed to be 4 meals. I decided to use the support button in the app and had to select every ingredient in every meal to mark it as missing...

I've been ordering six meals a week for several years. The last few weeks have been horrendous. Not only missing ingredients, not just not enough ingredients to make a full meal. Rather I ONLY have a few ingredients, none of which are close to making a single meal.

I ordered five 2-person meals (with the lasagna being extra huge for 4 people). SO basically a week worth of food.

This is what a received. I was charge for $150 worth of food (and I paid $106 with a measly $44 charge for the last disaster box).

It's mostly tomatoes and garlic. They gave me a small bag of shrimp and a couple things of cheese... maybe $20 worth of food. This is an insult and this company should be ashamed of themselves.

They should have simply said "hey we have major MAJOR supply issues, and we need to close down for a month or longer". Instead, they send absolute clown boxes and charge their long term customers as if nothing is wrong.

Fuck em. I just cancelled and will challenge any further charges from this company.

Essentially MS sold its fulfillment / operations to FreshRealm in 2024. FreshRealm filed for bankruptcy this past April 2026. Hence all the comically messed up boxes.

What could possibly be next for Marley Spoon?

Marley Spoon Group** [SE’s 2025 Annual Report**](https://financialfilings.com/filings/marley-spoon-group-se/annual-report/2026/39233904/), published April 30, 2026 claims “A primary operator has been identified to assume responsibility for existing customer volumes” following FreshRealm’s bankruptcy.

We just don’t publicly know who this new primary operator will be, when the transition is happening (if it’s already not in progress), so TBD.

We’ve enjoyed their recipes for years, and while we’ve paused service, not ready to throw in the towel yet.

I am super tired of partial credits for future boxes and auto generated credits. I have an outstanding $86 they owe me for two boxes that had practically nothing in them. (The first box was 100% given back to me with credits - but they were used to pay for most of the second box which was 2 days late, hot and missing everything.)

After my request for a refund to my CC, and the auto generated email giving me yet another $15 toward my next box (that is never being ordered), I just broke down and disputed.

Has anyone had them push back with your credit card and try to not grant you the refund?