Consumer complaints about the quality of fresh food deliveries from Kurly have emerged amid a record-breaking heat wave, with temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius. The company said it is monitoring customer feedback and working to improve its packaging.
Online communities have seen a string of posts in recent days criticizing the condition of fresh food received from Kurly, retail industry sources said Tuesday. Complaints included frozen products arriving fully thawed after early-morning delivery, and boxes so soaked that water pooled on the floor with dry ice completely melted inside.
Fresh food is highly susceptible to outside temperatures and delivery times during transit. As heat waves intensify, refrigerant volume, packaging methods and temperature management throughout the delivery process become increasingly critical. Kurly has long marketed its early-morning "Saebbyeol" delivery service and fully cold-chain logistics as key competitive strengths, emphasizing a system that maintains freshness from production through delivery.
"The unusually prolonged heat wave has made it difficult to secure sufficient supplies of dry ice and other refrigerants, but we are doing our best to secure as much stock as possible," a Kurly official said. The company added that it is continuously monitoring customer feedback and improving its packaging methods to suit both the heat conditions and the characteristics of individual products.
Industry observers expect that if heat waves as severe as this summer's persist, fresh food delivery companies will face mounting pressure to maintain product quality. As competition in online shopping for fresh food delivery intensifies, the ability to preserve product quality even during extreme heat is set to become a key differentiator.
korean@heraldcorp.com
