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CB Food and Beverages Review of Natures Produce
Natures Produce

Natures Produce review: Ripoff & Scam 2

J
Author of the review
11:22 pm EDT
Resolved
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
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I am an angry ex-customer of Natures Produce. Richard Polisky owner of Natures Produce is a scam artist who is ripping people and restaurants off. He is the owner of a produce and food distributor or food supply company called Natures Produce located in Vernon, CA (Los Angeles, CA). Rick and his sons Blake and Ryan all run NaturesProduce.com. All three of them are sleazy, pompous and backstabbing businessmen that will do or say anything, and I mean anything to gain the business of the restaurants or hotels they supply food to.
The company actually works with many of the high-end so called high-quality food restaurants and hotels in Los Angeles County. I don’t want to name them all as it will probably hurt those businesses but it’s actually pretty sad that these restaurants and people don’t know the truth or care about Natures Produce’s practices… yet. It’s mostly likely because Rick Polisky and his sons have so many people on their payroll with money, “extras”, bribes and drugs to get their business AKA SLSHotel, Sam Nazerian (busted for taking bribes and drug use, then stepped down), the CEO of Norms who just got fired for taking bribes, and his ex-business partner Teddy Kaplan who Rick stole money from (they are no longer partners). Let’s not forget to bribe the restaurant chefs (with [protected]@k3) to make sure they are on board with the so called “organic products” that they sell and distribute. This is all well known in the industry and we found all this out the hard way.
I can assure you, as I was a customer that these are not real certified organic produce, fruits vegetables and products. I was also told by an ex-employee that the “organic” fruit, vegetables and produce that they sold to me and sell to others customers is not organic. They have been putting fake labels on their food to pass it off as certified organic products when actually they are GMO and not grown by local farmers as they advertise and tell to their customers! We had no idea that it was this bad but we knew something was off when we received our orders.
On one of the shipments we received my employee noticed the food and produce didn’t look organic. It was too big, shiny and lush to be real organic vegetables. It also looked like we were missing part of the order but with further inspection we again noticed that the food did not look organic, the frozen food was damaged and looked very old with extreme freezer burn, the “organic fruits” already seemed to be on the way out and looked almost 2 weeks old. Organic food doesn’t last as long since they don’t use preservatives but this food definitely looked off like maybe it had been treated or sprayed with something to make last longer.
After we told them about the order they tried to bribe me and my chef not to say anything by cutting us “deals” on the produce. They said they would give me extra produce on the next order and this was just a mistake. Don’t worry they said we just got our shipments or order mixed up and the next delivery they would make sure it was all organic with extras. They apologized and we waited for the next order. Since switching vendors can be difficult and costly we decided to give them another chance.
The next shipment came and again the produce didn’t look great. Some of the food wasn’t what we asked for and again looked like the previous order. They assured me it was organic but I had my doubts and my chef too. Then after they left my chef told me that they had talked to him on the side offering some money and a “little extra” on top if he tried to convince me not to think about it and continue buying from them. My chef declined the offer. We cancelled our contract and the next orders from Natures Produce and Rick Polisky.
Finally we reached out to an employee at Natures Produce (now an ex-employee) and they gave us the whole story about Rick, the sons Blake and Ryan and the Natures Produce scams they get away with. They confirmed our suspicions and told us how they have been switching the labels on the food to save money and increase profits. Basically the employee said they printed fake organic labels and put them on the non-organic fruits and vegetables. We were shocked but figured as much after the horrible experience that we had with them and the bad quality of the food that was delivered.
The employee then told my chef and I about the conditions of the company. The first thing on the list was that Rick and the sons yell at employees abusively and treat them as servants talking down to them on most occasions. Many of the employees are illegal immigrants who work extremely hard long hours for horrible pay which is well under the minimum wage. And since they are illegal to the country and not on the books they cannot speak up about the mistreatment unhealthy working conditions and the situation they found themselves in. Apparently one incident escalated to be violent where Rick hit an employee and they had to be broken up by other employees. The employee mentioned that the company HACCP Certification is fake and they are in violation but paid off the right people to keep in business. Sometimes to convince potential buyers Rick would take the client to the Professional Produce plant, basically anything to close the deal.
Apparently all of this was just the daily routine and we were just in the line of fire as this is a normal practice for their business, Rick and the culture at Natures Produce.
We truly hope that that this finds the right people as we would never want what happened to us happening to other business. There are many other high profile hotels and restaurants in the Los Angeles area that use their services. I’m guessing a lot of the business owners don’t know about this or maybe don’t care. Of course there is the possibility that Rick, Blake and Ryan Polisky have paid these owners off but I’m guessing it starts in the kitchen with the cooks taking drugs and money bribes then vouch for the food service to the owners of these places. I truly feel sorry for the people who are getting lied to and scammed by Natures Produce and their goons and hope that they will wake up and have some morals to stop buying from them. In the end it’s not the company that suffers but the end user who are the people eating at the hotels and restaurants and being told they are eating one thing then getting served another.

Resolved

The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.

2 comments
N
N
Natures Produce Company
Phoenix, US
Jun 01, 2015 11:34 am EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

While ComplaintsBoard has marked the matter "Resolved" in accordance with its policies and procedures, the company continues to deny that any such disgruntled former customer exists. Rather, the company believes this was a fictitious "complaint" post by a competitor or former employee. The company is continuing its investigation into the above fictitious “complaint” post. Anyone with information as to the author of the post is requested to contact the company’s legal counsel, Robert D. Mitchell, Tiffany & Bosco, P.A. at [protected]. Thank you.

N
N
Natures Produce Company
Phoenix, US
Mar 16, 2015 9:10 pm EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

The content of the above post is false, absurd, despicable, shameful and without any basis in fact. This “complaint” post was posted anonymously as the person putting it up obviously does not want to stand behind these false and defamatory remarks and reveal his or her identity. We suspect it was posted by a competitor or a disgruntled ex-employee. Natures Produce has engaged legal counsel and will be pursuing the perpetrators of this libel aggressively.