Brakes Avis 

Rest of reviews say everything I wanted to. They are absolutely shameful as a company

I have used Brakes for the past 8 years supplying 2 of my businesses with food and drink, over the last 18 months the level of service has deteriorated significantly to a point that I have stopped using them for one of the businesses and moved all my orders to another large wholesaler.
I have used Brakes mainly for the customer service they provided, certainly not because of cost as they are one of the more expensive suppliers, even with discounts.
With the other business I am slowing moving my orders to another supplier as they seem to care about having your business where Brakes have lost that touch.
All started when they moved my account manager, who I had since day one and built a good relationship with, since then I have not seen an account manager not once and certainly for the last 6 months not even had a call to see if there were any problems.
Lastly credit control, well what can I say about them, in the last 6 months they are the biggest pain in my backside, quick enough to chase an account if a few days late but not quick enough when you have been chasing credits for the same period for 2 weeks due to stock not delivered.
When you do pay them, they seem to have a habit of allocating the payment to the wrong month and invoices despite a remittance with all invoice numbers and amounts documented on it been sent. When you speak to them its never their fault, typical credit controllers you might say, yes I agree but at least before chasing make sure you have done your job correctly and not caused the delay in the first place.

Update 29/01/2024: Brakes customer service reached out to me due to my review and asked for further details, I gave them my account number and details of poor level of service, then got ignored by them. as I said there is better and cheaper suppluirs out there that actually want your business.

Worse food suplier you can work with. Most of the product is very short dated. Poor quality. Keep get over charged. Half of the return/credited amount missing. Billed out of blue. 2 years after closing account got county court claim don't know why... Appealed against it. Mislead with wrong court details by their dodgie Solicitors. Communication by email blocked by them. Letters never answered. Stay far far away from this company. They are thiefs, cowboys, robbers.
👎🏼👎🏼👎🏼👎🏼👎🏼

Constant problems with quality,storage,online saying goods are available you order them only to find there not available or have been discontinued!customers service is robotic I know exactly what they are going to say they never get back to you they just lie,drivers are all great but when it's been stored inside the lorries we get icing sugar with chicken on top of it totally wrong, we've had mouldy bread ,split tubs of vitalite mouldy fruit,cheese mouldy,the list goes on. ,,this is nit my business I'm just the chef but I would never use this company there's always something missing items we have paid for which are not on the lorry I complain they say sorry that's it same thing happens the best week.

I have dealt with Brakes for 6 months and it has been a pleasure. The deliveries have been prompt and the customer service always helpful. My contact (Tracey) deserves special mention as she has been so helpful in setting up and maintaining the account.The quality & variety of the products is excellent.

After some accout opening issues it was handed over to Tracey who has been amazing. I was up and running in 24 hours the delivery was easy and she rang to check up to make sure all was well..so far so good and a really good selection of products

Where to start terrible local sales rep Brooke who after 2 weeks just went AWOL didnt answer calls,or return emails and left us with an absolute diaster through failed deliveries for a 8000 people music event which meant we had staff running round to stores to buy food for our stalls that didnt arrive. Complained to the Manager above who never even bothered to respond. As such we have closed our account.

Absolutely terrible customer service. Lied to, people pretending they don't exist to escape responsibility. Actually you couldn't make this up, how have they managed to survive as a business when there is so many better options. My advice would be to avoid like the plague.

For six long months, I've been trying to resolve the simple issue of adding my card details so I can place an order. I received a call two weeks ago, assuring me that the problem was resolved after all this time. But now, as I attempt to place an order, I'm encountering the same issue once again. What is wrong with this business? How can something as straightforward as this not work?

You are loosing out on a customer with two large orders a week. Anyone from the management team who wants to discuss this please do get in touch mamacitastalesatgmail.com. You have good products but the service/ technical issues are shocking.

Brakes worker was delivering to my school and I didn't see the man coming in and shouted at Me and said learn manners

I work for a large company that uses brakes. They have to be the worst food service company in Britain by along way. Where to start: communication is awful. We have a delivery window, very rarely are our deliveries on time. There always seems to be something missing. If I could I would get rid of them. What doesn't Make sense is why do they keep adding companies when they can't manage the ones they have. Avoid like the plague.

Beth helped me open an account, and get an order through within 24 hours. She was helpful, talked me through the order process and was on hand to answer any questions. I can't fault the service I've received and I've been very happy with the produce delivered. I would recommend using Brakes without hesitation.

They kept sending wrong items. When I asked to change the correct ones, they say sorry they can neither change nor refund. They dont care customer and they just care their own benefits. My latest order came with wrong item again. I ordered medium size of jacket potato bt they sent small ones which I have never used. In addition to that, when I cjecked my account to make sure that I ordered correct item, it shcoked me since someone intruded my account and added small potatos and cancelled the meddium ones. If I dont have confirmation email one day before I had no chance to prove that I ordered correctly.
This is a con and ripping off.

After leaving a 1 star review 18 months ago after Brakes dropped us without any warning, leaving us with half our menu out of stock until we found a new supplier - they had the cheek to call this morning looking to see if they could supply our business again. I was speechless and after my response to the girl on the phone, so was she ! When I said I would never use you again, I meant it. £50K of business now with a great supplier, 10PM cut off and 5 day a week delivery.

Used to order with the brakes home delivery service and was told constantly throughtout the last couple of years that they would be bringing back the service. A very scripted response every time talking about the pandemic and helping businesses to recover. Then finally their website for home delivery just comes up with certificate errors, and if I call or email, I'm just given the same scripted nonsense... Why not just say you're not doing the service anymore? I even had one customer service staff member tell me to just register as a business and it "should be ok". Ridiculous. Literally, they just had to say they weren't doing the service anymore and we could have found other means.

Awful company, avoid. Terrible product range and disgraceful customer service. Business development manager needs serious training. It was like being shouted at by a drunk crack smoker. Imagine spending £5k a month with a business that conducts themselves in this way. Put the pipe down.

Apply for a job , get a reply to call them as interested in my application, then get told no good and make you feel like crap on the phone. Need to practice your so called policy.

If you have been a stay at home mum, don't bother applying for a job - they don't want you!

Ridiculous company. Allow 2 hours interview. Driving assessment, CPC assessment, hi vis and safety boots.not required , none of them required although having been told all would be and none of the above checks done. Professional ? No. Ridiculous ? Yes 👍

We really like some vegan products good price we thinking to buy more of other products for our new food business however we are really disappointed how they run the business terms and conditions need to be changed open for public atleast click and collect, do not have to spend minimum over the year, so many business are struggling to make money,
Please consider 🙏 this review and make changes so you get more business