Brakes Opiniões 

After 24 years in hospitality, I can honestly say this has been the worst experience I've ever had with a food service supplier.

Over the course of a month, Brakes repeatedly failed to deliver complete orders, and on several occasions failed to deliver at all. This wasn't an isolated mistake—it became the norm.

During one of the hottest weeks of the year, with temperatures approaching 40°C, we were left without bottled water, soft drinks, milk, chocolate, napkins and numerous other essential items. Our customers didn't blame Brakes—they blamed us. My staff had to deal with angry members and guests because we simply had no stock to sell.

Some examples include:

Entire deliveries failing to arrive.
Orders arriving a day late.
Full cages of products missing from deliveries.
Wedding supplies, including spirits, missing from orders, forcing emergency trips to local retailers.
Drivers informing us that milk and frozen products had been "left out in the sun" and were therefore spoiled before delivery.
No proactive communication whatsoever about unavailable items, despite Brakes advertising live stock tracking and customer notifications.

What frustrated me most wasn't just the mistakes—it was the complete lack of communication. Time after time I discovered products were missing only when the lorry arrived. Nobody contacted us beforehand to explain what wouldn't be delivered or to help us make alternative arrangements.

My Business Development Manager, Luke Styman, apologised and explained the company was suffering from a failed IT update and a depot move. While I appreciate businesses face operational challenges, those problems should not become the customer's problem. If you know you cannot provide the service you've promised, be honest and tell your customers so they can make other arrangements.

The contrast with another supplier couldn't have been greater. After placing an emergency order elsewhere late one afternoon, I received a phone call within six minutes confirming delivery for the following morning and advising me of one item that was out of stock. That's customer service: honest, proactive and professional.

Sadly, Brakes offered none of that during our experience.

The result was weeks of unnecessary stress, hours spent sourcing emergency replacement stock, disappointed customers, damage to our own reputation, and a significant amount of management time wasted fixing problems that should never have existed.

I've now taken my business elsewhere and, based on my experience, I cannot recommend Brakes. If reliability, communication and accountability are important to your business, my experience suggests you should consider other suppliers.

Completely incapable of delivering. We've ordered the same amounts every week for months and almost every delivery is either late, cancelled or rescheduled without notice.

We've spent endless ours with Customer Support, or sales rep and even the regional manager who's given us every reassurance that "now it's fixed" but nothing changes.

The only saving grace of this place is the sales rep who has been an absolute rockstar trying to fight for us, as clearly Brakes is only able to delivery products when someone internally screams and shouts loud enough, and even then it's not always enough.

REPLY
Since I can't reply to your comment I'll reply here, I've been in contact with your customer care team repeatedly, they can't do anything except "let people know and escalate" but nothing ever changes

the driver Jason smith is fantastic allways goes out his way and always happy

easy to you website, lots of different products, delivery always on time and friendly staff and the cash back rewards is amazing.

Cashback hasn't been added to my account for a year. I've reported this once, but to no avail. Could I find out why I can't participate in the Brakes loyalty program?

We have had repeated issues with Brakes over the past four weeks, and unfortunately the experience has been extremely frustrating.

On multiple occasions, our account was blocked due to failed payments, yet nobody contacted us by phone or email to let us know there was an issue. As a restaurant, being suddenly unable to place orders without any warning is unacceptable. We resolved the problem, only for exactly the same thing to happen again shortly afterwards.

To make matters worse, I have emailed customer services on several occasions and have not received a single reply. It is extremely disappointing when customers are actively trying to resolve issues and are simply ignored.

Ironically, Brakes is the only supplier we use where these payment issues seem to occur. Today, I finally received an email regarding a failed payment, but that only highlights the inconsistency of their communication. If an account is going to be blocked, customers should be informed immediately and proactively.

The final straw was the stock availability. We have repeatedly received order confirmation emails and "out for delivery" emails listing products that were supposedly being delivered. These emails even state that unavailable products will be shown as zero. Yet when the delivery arrives, items are simply missing because they are out of stock. This creates serious operational problems for a busy restaurant trying to plan service.

What makes the situation even worse is the customer service. Rather than taking ownership and finding solutions, the response is usually just an apology with no meaningful action taken to prevent the issue from happening again. After several attempts to resolve these recurring problems, it feels like customers are expected to accept poor service and move on.

We will not be ordering from Brakes again. Based on our experience, I would strongly recommend that other businesses consider alternative suppliers. Brakes makes plenty of promises, but when problems arise, they do very little to put things right.

We are currently working with Jennifer Rozelaar, who is consistently professional, approachable, and highly knowledgeable about Brakes’ products and services.
She responds promptly, keeps us proactively informed, and goes above and beyond to ensure everything runs smoothly. Her attention to detail and willingness to assist with any queries or challenges make a real difference to our daily operations.
Jennifer’s friendly and dependable approach makes her a pleasure to work with, and she truly reflects the high standards of service that Brakes stands for. An outstanding sales representative.

Poor quality products, poor stock rotation, missing items that have been ordered, poor dates on fresh goods.
Ask for goods that don't arrive to be delivered next day, and nearly get a NO, no one in your area, when we know there is someone in our area at all times

Delivery service is the worts delivery service I had ever experienced

You just simply don’t get your delivery
Not enough staff and taking new Custemer’s on is something Brakes should not do as they can’t deliver good service for existing customers !
So save your delivery service you got with current supplier as brakes can’t handle Busnise they got .
I had 3 times a week delivery in the morning - they contacted my to join to become Custemer .
Now I have been told to leave because I’m not happy not getting delivery on my delivery day !

They do not undearstand that we set up our websites menu based on them stock ! Which coast monay !

Not a user friendly website
Never have enough stock

Excellent account manager Tierney who always goes above and beyond making sure that she has regular meetings, suggesting new options for menus and generally being very helpful

Service not very good been trying to get hold of area rep for the last month after she promised to look at prices for me
Even rang main switch board to see if she still working for them which she is
They said will send a email to her still haven’t heard anything with spending thousands on products you would of thought they would be in contact by now

Terrible service. Allowed one off my staff members to set up an account using my company details and not asking to talk to company director. After calling a few times I finally got it moved to me. I made an order and was told that the payment would be taken 10 days later but instead they took it 7 days later. The DD failed due to banking error and said I would sort it out. My BDM said he would meet up with me out off the office to settle the balance which is unprofessional and also threatening me with legal action when I said I will make a manual payment. My BDM also promised price changes but these never reflected on my invoice. I want my account closed and all invoices will be settled straight after.

Great range of items for every need, from cheap range for schools, MOD to top class hotels. Everything you need is in the range of products and great helpful staff

BRAKES IS BEEN IMPROVED EVERY YEAR THEY GETTING BETTER

Im so upset with thus company . I ordered stock to come for a Thursday delivery due to I had buffets on the weekend for funerals. The delivery drivers never came so I spoke to the customer service and I was promised I would get it the next day . This delivery never came again so I had to close my shop and try to source stock. I couldn't get everything I needed and I had to pay alot of money and just get what I could and change the buffet . This lead to complains from customers and I had to give refunds . I lost the money for the stock and the funerals and also having to shut the shop to customers for get stock. I have lost 1000s because of this company and it also has hurt my future business as it made me look unprofessional. I have spoke to several people about this issue and no one is getting back to me even though I have emails of them admitting folt on there part . Every time I chase this up I get told someone will be in contact but no one ever does . This has made me very unwell due to being a new business and has affected me paying bills I need to pay. No one cares and I will be posting all my evidence of emails and calls online . Please stay clear as you will get rotton fruit and veg and also half your order missing every week if it turns up at all and dont expect them to put a mistake they have made right . You will get passed around and told its not there department until you are that emotionally drained by it all you feel like closing down and giving up. I have now seeked legal advice due to my treatment

Great Regional Rep Chris Aitken cannot sing his praises highly enough, most recently Omar the driver went way above what he needed to do when there was an issue with missing cages, after he finished his route he went back to the depot to collect the missing cages and delivered them to all the businesses that needed the produce that same day (Absolutely tremendous) . If we do have any issues they are promptly delt with

Credit Control Department is a joke. Block my account without any notice email. Send email to credit control, never reply. Called them today try to solve the issue so can place an order, very slow IT team to solve the problem.

Quick and easy to order and look for other products when needed

Great range of products and Abiodun, your driver, is a credit to the company.