Brakes Avis 

Fantastic support from Zoe Hunter at Brakes, she has really pulled out all the stops in helping set up our account pretty much within 48 hours.

Zoe is a great asset to the company.... thank you so much for all your help, really appreciated.

Warrington RDC,
Totally Rubish place to work. The Team Leaders/Manager still use old style favouritism which does not reflect United Kingdom wider opinion again.
The promised shift flexibility is a lie and non is true. Horrible Canteen staff at night. You will get immediate reviews when you refused to work on Unsafe act.
Never care of Health and safety.
The pay does not Justify the work.
They offer recruitment incentives because a lot of people come and go within weeks.
Craps place to work.
Not recommend.

We've always used brakes as a company and spend a lot of money with them considering we are just the one site (growing business). Typically, they are fine. But not too long ago our Brakes "rep" left the Company and we were promised a new one would be in touch. That was months ago now and despite requesting a call from our new rep on two separate occasions and promised by customer services that it would be passed on...have heard absolutely nothing. Beginning to think that we might not have one at all anymore...

Brakes also randomly decided to change our delivery days recently. A pretty sizeable order we waited on site for on Friday (a delivery day we have had from the beginning), was actually placed for the following Tuesday. Because they had decided to change us to Tuesday / Thursday instead of Tuesday / Friday. Must have missed the basic courtesy email or phone call to let us know about that...(there wasn't one).

They also seem to suffer increasingly common online ordering technical difficulties. They aren't every day issues, but when something goes wrong, it seems to really mess up their entire system. For example, we amended an order due for tomorrow, hours before the cut off time today, but didn't receive a confirmation email. Called customer service and was told that they were aware of the technical difficulty and they were working on it but "not to worry - we are extending the cut off time for today and amended orders will be honoured". Received an email confirmation later into the evening, with every single part of the amended order marked off.

Drivers mostly fine but overworked from the sounds of it.

Unavailable or incorrect items being picked is also becoming a growing trend we've noticed as well.

We will continue on with Brakes, but...the communication and care is often lacking.

Having said all of that, I can appreciate they are up against it and we try to be generally understanding of issues as a company ourselves. I get that things can go wrong...I just feel that sometimes Brakes try to deal with them very internally and don't relay much to the customer. Even a basic template email sent out to customers stating "apologies for the inconvenience with our technical errors today" or.... "we are going to be changing your delivery days"...would leave customers with a little more willingness to be understanding.

Very weird company. Filled out an account opening form and missed a call from someone who tried to contact me. I called back and spoke to someone else regarding opening an account because they offered a product line (pringles) which I wanted to order in bulk and got told that we have to order a mix of meats and other items in our basket even though we do not require nor sell meat items. I don't understand how a company can impose such restrictions on orders when all they need to do is fulfill whatever orders they receive based on available inventory on the line. Mind you, there was nothing on their website stating this condition. Imagine wanting to order a pallet of different types of pringles and being told that you have to order meat as well. Ridiculous waste of time and a joke! I should have read the negative reviews before filling out the form.

AWFUL DRIVER!

My car was crashed into on the side by a Brakes driver who I thought he was remorseful to leave a note. Turned out that the information on the note was inaccurate and had to trace him down. I have filed a complaint to the company by going through multiple lines and transferred everywhere which one lady was kind enough to file a report but I haven’t heard back. I would like this sorted as soon as possible please.

Amazing ordering system and great drives.
I have read some of the reviews and most of them seemed negative. However, I have been ordering from brakes sine June 2022 and they have been excellent so far. There is the odd missing item once in a while, but they immidiatly offer a credit note. Plus, they gave us more the £860 in thier 10% cashback offer.

One of the worst places to work for. I didn't got paid for 10 days of work and at the date when I supposed to get paid I've been told to wait one more month 😂

I used to work for Brakes as a HGV Driver on deliveries and recently left, if any management from London reads this review they will know who I am. This is a terrible company to work for, at first it’s ok then they’ll overload you with work and they think it’s funny and try to play it off.

I would leave for work at 4am and return home at 7-8pm, get 6 hours sleep because of a 3hr rush hour round trip commute and be back in again tired in a HGV at 5am, only to find the managers give out jobs unevenly based on your height and build, so because I’m tall and built i’ll get hammered with the heavy time consuming stuff, meanwhile their favourites are all finishing by 2:30pm, even on my last day I noticed a driver who started the same time as me had less then half of the workload they gave to me, yet we’re paid the same? basically they practise of a form of discrimination this is why I left and they can go and practise that on their own.

To be clear all the staff in the office and the training personnel are great, salt of the earth and would help you out in a heartbeat, it was the distribution management who are…let’s be polite… out of touch (with reality).

As for the 6th review below where Raymond complained about drivers hiding damaged goods, this is true but it’s not for money, the drivers may hide damaged stuff simply because the writing and paperwork is too much, the driver has to write on the invoice to credit the chef/hotel etc, then they have to write it down again on a separate form instead of simply marking down goods as damaged on a handheld device and quickly moving on, this is why drivers hide damaged goods because the system they use is antiquated and out of date. As long as you signed that invoice as a company they couldn’t care less, they’ve got your money.

Any person wanting to work for Brakes or any company that wishes to use them, be warned, there are a lot of 1 stars for a reason. Just to add it seems like I'm getting bad references despite being punctual and having good attendance and companies aren't allowed to give bad references on the sly. This is who Brakes are, truly a bad company.

Couldn't put no stars so one star... Dangerous drivers, had a driver almost take us off the road in Surrey and then watched as he almost did the same thing to 3 other people. Tried to report him but had no luck! Still have the number plate if the company want it.

Really rude lorry drivers,pig ignorant, there not bothered about your goods

Brakes delivered on 18/1 insopector arrived 21/1.. little did chefs expect the pork that had been delivered 3 days earlier would be out of date sitting in its cardboard box.. once the inspector opened out of date.. disgusting how they can send items with less than 4 days shelf life.. even though they promise 4 days shelf life... caution... yes drivers never respect delivery window.. spent over half a million with this company.. and they cant acknowledge their mistakes. I’ve called customer service. Doing nothing. Can’t even offer credit for pork we threw in the bin because we never reported within 72 hours.

I started work at this company on January 29th 2022 at first I was happy, it was enjoyable I thought my manager who hired me would understand me as he grew up in a similar background,but things started to go from bas to worse working for the company as the management didn’t know how to manage and they didn’t have they’re staffs best interests. On the 17 I was in the brakes yard, and my mother called as it was an emergency. I answered I was then approached by mr Warren Fost and verbally abused because of me taken the call,Mr Fost walked away from my vehicular but I wanted to ask why he was so rude. So I got out my van and approached Mr Fost calmly and asked why he felt the need to talk to me the way he did, mr Fost mocked the way I spoke to me to shut up and was toe to toe with me. I had my fist clinched as he was in my personal space but honestly I like brakes at the time and I wanted to work there so I went upstairs to management and explained what happened. I was then told that I’d be suspended for something I still don’t know about and nothing happened to Mr Warren Fost on how he spoke to me, I went onto to resign from the company as I lost all the confidence In myself and to work for the company.I was due to be paid 17 days work and brakes brothers has unlawfully not paid me and put me into financial strain.

As an independent small business we have used Brakes for the last 18 years, prior to this as a head Chef I have used them for at least another 20 years .
We as a business now get the impression that they do not want our business or any small business any more. They seem intent on making it so difficult to place orders (online only),and ridiculously high prices (the equivalent of which can be purchased from ‘Bookers’ for half/ two thirds the price).
As other reviewers have already said the new delivery system is not fit for purpose.
The ‘Reps’ promise everything and deliver nothing, in fact they don’t even return calls.
I feel sorry for the hardworking staff being let down by bad management, if the staff morale is low then your business will suffer the consequences.

Drives hid damaged items on our delivery in an attempt to make us pay for the them use literally any other supplier if you can They rarely have everything you order and still have the gall to put £500 minimum order amount

When covid hit and all the schools and hotels restaurants all closed it was the care homes that kept you open , you decided to just stock your lorries and let drivers pick orders as they go, this probably worked then but you are still trying to use this one man two jobs service and it won’t and can’t work now everything is open again , BRAKES YOU ARE RUINING YOUR OWN BUSINESS, by being cheap skates

They never respect the windows time agreed they are always late by 4 hours gap sometimes even more from the time agreed.
Their services are really bad, I don't know how a company can survive like this. They deserve -0 star.

Was looking into driving job here but after reading the reviews, wasn’t sure it’d be my best move.

Shame

Pre-Pandemic this company was happy to take our money. Now they won't give us the time of day!!! Locked our account due to not delivering in my area anymore, even though I see their trucks driving past my business on a regular basis all the time. I have recently asked them to re-open my account which they will do on the condition that I spend £250 or more every week!!! Prior to Covid I had invoices as low as £84.56, and it didn't matter if I ordered 4 times a month or once a month. Their excuse that they removed the minimum spend during Covid and they are now reinstating a minimum spend may be true, but it has increased dramatically and it wasn't a condition that it had to be a weekly spend. They don't support small businesses and are a disgrace!!!

Really poor customer service. Cannot be trusted to deliver on what they say. Wouldn’t do business with them as cannot believe they will do what they say. Be warned and go elsewhere

We'd only just moved to Brake's pre covid. Delivery was great. Increased product range available to us and stock availability was great. Then they got short of drivers/staff and we were dropped from their deliveries for what was supposed to be a number of weeks, but became months and months. We had to source alternative products, make more items from scratch. On one hand keeping more £ in house for us, but also creating a lot of extra stress when the wedding industry reopened. We've still not been invited back as a customer. Would we go back... not really sure.