Now, as Amazon prepares to launch its food delivery arm Amazon Fresh in the UK, it is disgruntled customers who are damaging the company’s credibility.

Amazon began delivering food in Seattle in 2007, and has since expanded to several other cities, including parts of New York.

Having recently acquired a 300,000 sq ft warehouse in Surrey, the company is due to launch Amazon Fresh in the UK in September.

But according to dozens of online reviews, rancid meat and fish, bruised fruit and veg and missing items are a regular occurrence; while 40% of reviews on the Amazon Fresh website give the service a five-star rating, 22% give it just one star.

One user, Rebecca, complained of “underripe fruits, moldy potatoes, wilted lettuce” and branded the service as “awful”. “After a strong start, Amazon Fresh now gets my orders wrong every single time,” she added.

Another user, Luv Mom, said her delivery was stolen after delivery men abandoned it outside her door. “I usually have at least 2 cracked eggs in each order,” she said.

Many customers reported bugs on the services mobile app, and one dissatisfied customer tried and failed to download it on their Kindle Fire HD: “Amazon’s own Fresh store app is not compatible on their own tablet? Beyond pathetic,” they vented.

This weekend, a New York-based writer for the Sunday Times, also wrote of their “typically disappointing” experiences with the service, stating that food that was “off, missing or smashed to pieces.”

But according to the reporter, Iain Dey, Amazon is desperate to makes amends with angry customers by offering credit.

“After the bananas in our first order were crushed under a case of cola cans, we received a $25 (£16) voucher to apologise,” he wrote.

“A delivery made five hours late with one bag missing resulted in a $14 refund and a further $15 credit. Mussels were also off in the shipment with the rotten fish. A $23 refund and a $20 coupon followed, no photographic evidence required.”

But will such gestures be enough to keep customers on while the company attempts to salvage its reputation?

Last week ex-human rights lawyer and entrepreneur Marisa Leaf told The Memo why Amazon Fresh is not the future of food shopping.

“You need to have your vans designed in a way that a generalist like Amazon just wouldn’t,” said Leaf.

“As soon as you’ve got a warehouse model, you extend the supplier chains and all of the food has to have a longer shelf life: they just can’t stock alot of what we sell because the fish is too perishable or for the bread they’d need a whole load of preservatives put it.”

If Amazon doesn’t sort out its food service sharpish, Marissa Leaf may not be the only Brit lacking faith in Amazon Fresh.