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I would be very careful of a company roaming around the Ottawa and Toronto area, they are called NutraFarms. They will try to provide you a sample and even heard they take back the sample if you don't sign up for a $3000 contract. NutraFarms seem to have been setup to deceive people.
The company has not being honest when I started asking questions such as where are the farms, where are the certification to back all the free range, no antibiotic claims. Nutrafarms Regional Manager provided excuses saying the farmers are shy and want to remain anonymous. Also their web site is "under construction" I was told after an email to someone in the "contact us". So any affiliations or certifications are not present on the web site. That actually makes sens because they don't have any. When you buy from NutraFarms, there is no way that you can verify what you are feeding your family. Also when looking at various trace on the internet it seems Nutrafarms started operating only in May 2008, before that, they must have operated under the name Canadian Select Farm because they both share the same postal address.
Maybe Nutrafarms is truly what they claim but it is not possible to verify because the company is not being transparent at all and also uses many deceiving tactics. Maybe the "blast freeze" makes the meat better as oppose to free range, etc.
Did you notice those that ordered, that you actually don't know the quantities you ordered until you receive it? This is quite a weird way of buy goods and from what I could see you will get about 160lbs of meat for the cost of $2895, that is probably 3 times the price you get from the real "free range" farmers out there that has all certificate and you can visit the farms.
Nutrafarms uses another deceiving tactics, they will provide you with a certificate with a big "Free Range" stamp. Unfortunately that stamp is an illusion because the small print shows "Free Range Canada Inc". That company is a whole seller no certification at all see www.freerangecanada.ca.
Anyways you have 10 days cooling off period to cancel in writing via registered letter. Beside the cost of registered letter, NutraFarm can't impose any other costs since they didn't provide you yet with any products except the free sample. see http://www.sse.gov.on.ca/mcs/en/Pages/Cancel_a_Contract.aspx
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
Hi there,
We got a Nutrafarm salesman visit last week (January the 23rd) and he got us signed on Pack #1 (the 2800 CAD) order. I'll leave aside the fact that he arrived one hour later and took three hours to get things done.
Unfortunately, next day when we actually sat down and try to figure out exactely how much meat we eat in one year, we realize it's Nutrafarm contract would either get us too much meat or too expensive.
Bottom line, yesterday, Jan27 (so I'm still in the 10days cancelation period), i called them to either reduce the meat at 50% quantity or cancel the contract. The branch manager tried to offer several options - but none on reduce the size of the order. So, when I told him I'll cancel, he said there is a 15% RE-STOCKING FEE. Could not believe it, there is nothing like that in the papers I have from the salesman!
Really, how can you ask for 15% restocking FEE, when you did not deliver squat?!? The manager said I have signed that paper - which I don't have?! and I asked him to send me a scanned copy of it by email That was yesterday - so far nothing.
Can anybody confirm if they have seen this 15% re-stocking fee?
Thank you very much.
Nutrafarms - came to my house ( new suburb in London ON) today.
The whole thing weekend of "shoddy" as the "farmer" didn't turn up on time - and was 45 mins later that his agreed time! I welcomes the 'farmer" into the house foyer and asked him - Pls take off your shoes - and you can wear these new( still in store wrapped sealed bags) slippers to put on". and that BECAME THE POINT where he started talking to me about my HOUSE! oh nice house but do you have to get people to take of shoes and do you really want to smell peoples smelly socks! WOW > I sat him down and asked if he wanted something to drink since he be talking long time ( I guessed) he said NO I don't other peoples tap water !
So I guess by now anyone can guess the tone of this 'salesman/Farmer' would be! He told me if I had read the website I told him - nothing much about the farms and no REAL INFO - but lots of "general statements"
So I asked him " wheres the farms?" he saod they have a group in farmers ...
> Beef ...so where does the meat get processed? -- wow NOT DONE BY THE FARMERS!
>>Chicken - what is the average weight of (full )chicken that you sell? - oops we don't sell many full chicken -we try to tell people not to do that ! - we process all our meet at OUR FACILITY ...wow - so how does one know if any or only few of the meats comes from their select farms! rest can be bought from " farm mill" and might even be WORSE that the so called 'supermarket trash' you talk of? ...No answer
>> so what defines "natural " in your view or your company's view? how does Nutrafarms DEFINE NATURAL? -- well we follow what Govt oF Canada sets down for farmers to do. -- oh they have inspectors for that - which dept ? which of the areas they go to check? feeding? animal health management? or grass levels? - so what and who does this checking? ... well we can really assure you that all the meat is NATURAL.. so I tell him ANY MEAT is always produced my 'nature' its not yet made in a LAB - but we pretty close to that one I hear !
So who "own" the meat while I am paying off weekly or montly? - YOU DO -- ok > so there if there is like a flooding in my basement and fridge goes off, and meats spoil - ISTILL HAVE TO PAY .. when I don't have that Meat good eough to eat? .. yes but you can exchange it to whatever you don't like - so I can exchange thisBAD MEAT to you guys give me new new lot? -- nope only for first 30 days.
hmmn, , , so Nutrafarms = has NO RESPONSIBILITY for anything after these so called "natural" meats are deleivred ? nope just pay us the monthly sum and we will keep looking after you !
SO I stood up and said thanks for the time and please let you leave and look for other custoimers - as I have already decided to NOT BUY from you guys.
He got so upset that he could take off his "slippers", , , ( they just slide off - nothing needed to take your socks off !) so he kept telling me pls don't write a bad comment on the website pls
>>> note made from RECORDING DURING this "farmer/salesman" talking to me about this "order system"
for my part - Nutrafarms - should be HONEST and OPEN about how they do 'business' they wont even list who own the company, nor their senior management details - just gots of General INFO and nothing specific that would me me comfortable that the famers they deal with are even doing what they claim on their website!
I can understand you being upset by the visit from the Nutrafarm salesman (not a farmer!), however, I would like to point out some things you may not be clear on.
First off, we farmers DO NOT process our own meat. That is against the law unless the farmer also has a government inspected butchering facility on his or her farm.
Next, if you read the guidelines on the CFIA website in regards to the use of the word "natural" when describing farm animals being raised, you'll see it's actually illegal to use that term. Nutrafarms doesn't seem to be aware of that but then, neither are most consumers. So good for you for at least trying to ask.
Sounds like it's best for us to not do business with Nutrafarms as they dont appear to be able to prove their meat is sourced from certified organic and /or antibiotic free farms.
And on that note, any farmer who takes their job seriously will NOT simply allow complete strangers to come "visit" their farm. I know I certainly don't allow people I don't know to come over and possibly make my livestock sick.
So just because a farm is organic/free range, or humane certified(like mine is) does not mean you get to wander through the barn or fields, mkay?
We decided to give Nutrafarms a try in Spring 13, but will definitely not be renewing. The primary reason is that the meat did not last us anywhere near the predicted time, and some of the cuts were very disappointing. For example, we were out of back ribs in less than two months, chicken breast in about five months, and hamburger in about seven. We still have a number of strip loin steaks left, but that is primarily because we did not feel that they were of sufficient quality to serve to guests. The tenderloin was excellent, but the strip loins do not even come close to FarmBoy beef. Some of the steak cuts looked they were cut by an amateur butcher - very uneven thickness and way too thin to bbq in some cases. The bacon was far fattier than anything we would ever buy and the packaging was horrible - the fatty end was folded over itself making it very difficult to separate. It was tasty though, as were the pork chops and hamburger. The roasts in general were not that great. It is nearly impossible to gauge value as the package we received contained so many changes from the order list - I would guess that this is intentional to make an honest price comparison very difficult. The sales pitch emphasise the quality and the 30-day exchange if you are not happy with anything. 30 days came and went and we never got a call from anyone to see if we were happy or if we wanted to make any exchanges. If the company cannot walk the talk, then they are not deserving of any future business from me. Here it is Jan 14, and we have almost no Nutrafarms meat left and are still stuck with our $143.75 biweekly payments for another 4+ months!
We've been customer going on our third year now and we just received our third order actually. I also have problem with Nutrafarms but in a different way. The quality we found was great. Yes we did get the odd chuck of meat that could have been better but then that happens at our locale grocery store also. As for the quantity, I never assumed I was buying one year worth of meat. I looked at this as buying $3500 dollars worth of meat and spreading the coast over 10 months. We still look for sales and take advantage of those. We liked it because we don't need to go get it, don't need to separate into individual packs, don't need to have a machine to vacuum pack it and so forth. Our problem is their paper work. They seriously need to make some advancement with this. We never really could grasp a hold of just what we have purchased. The order form reminds me of the paper world we used to live in. They need to step into the computer age. And when the order arrives there is no one complete list of what we are getting. We need to spread it out on the floor and physically count our meat order. Because this is so vague, we don't know if we are paying 17$ a lbs or 22$ a lbs and this is worrisome for us. They need to change or they will loose us has a customer.