I tried Kiju Organic fruit juice for the first time, over a year ago. It was not a good experience. The juice had a very strange taste. Suffice to say, the word GROSS comes to mind. I ended up throwing it down the drain. I realised afterwards, I should have returned it to the store where it was purchased for a refund.
I was thinking about this juice again a few months ago and decided to give the company an opportunity to respond to the bad experience I had previously with their products.
Here's where it gets interesting and a bit humorous I think, too!
I emailed Kiju On February 9th of this year and this is the response I received that same day:
Hi
Geraldine - so sorry for your experience. That is NOT what our juice tastes
like at all. You clearly have a product where the packaging has been
compromised at some point, allowing the juice to be exposed to air.
Do you still have the package so that we can get the BB date coding
information. Also - what size of product was it?
Please send that info along with your address so that we can either send
you proper samples for review and/or coupons. We really do have great tasting
juices that taste just like you'd expect - juice!
Ok, I was game. I'm all for giving anyone, including companies a second chance to "get it right". I sent along my mailing info. to receive the coupons mentioned in their response.
And I waited, and waited...and waited some more.
I even sent another email to let them know I hadn't received any coupons, in case they had been lost along the way. But that wasn't the case.
Well, lo and behold, 2 juice coupons arrived in the mail on June 8th!
Wowsa, 4 months after my initial contact with this company, they finally sent me 2 coupons (yes, 2 whole coupons LOL) to make up for this bad experience with their products and the very long delay in making any attempt to rectify the problem. And to give me the opportunity to find out what their juices should taste like.
So, I took one of my long-awaited coupons to our local food co-op and got a carton of the Kiju Grape Apple juice to try again. This time, the taste was ok, not awful like my first experience. Ok but nothing special.
And I did note something interesting about the name and the ingredient list in this product:
Ingredients for Kiju Grape Apple Juice:
Filtered water, concentrated organic apple juice, concentrated organic grape juice, vitamin C
Ahh...that explains the rather ho-hum flavour of this juice: water and then (second) Apple and (third) Grape juice, in descending order of the ingredients listed in this product. It actually tastes like apple juice with a splash of grape added for color. I've certainly tasted better.
What really amazed me about this whole experience was the fact that my initial complaint was answered so quickly and it seemed so earnestly at the time.
But then it took the company 4 MONTHS to finally send me 2 coupons to make up for the bad experience I had with their products initially and the opportunity to give them another try. Ridiculous!
A big part of the quality and reputation of any company/product has to be about how they handle/respond to any issues that customers bring to their attention and in a TIMELY way. I wouldn't call 4 months in any way, timely.
Kiju: I won't be back for more! ;<)
Overall rating for this product/company: Unsatisfactory. 1 out of 5.
