Gluten-free Kraft Mac & Cheese boxes do not contain sauce packets. It took 1 woman’s TikTok to solve this problem.

The best part of packaged mac and cheese is the cheese sauce. What happens if you open a box of gluten-free Kraft Mac & Cheese and find nothing inside? That’s exactly the situation Abby Engel found herself in when she bought four boxes from four different stores and discovered they were missing this important element. Engel, who lives in Michigan, explained in a TikTok video that contacting Kraft didn’t solve the problem because the company sent her coupons for another free box — leaving her stuck in an endless cycle of no-cheese, no-wheat mac. , if you want.

“The thing is, then I go in to use this coupon and I get another box of mac and cheese and I open it and there’s no sauce packet inside,” explained Abby, who has celiac disease and can’t eat gluten. her post on November 19th. “So giving me a coupon for another box of Mac & Cheese isn’t going to solve the problem.”

Engel said that she not only went to various stores in her city, including Walmart and Kroger, but also went into the store to buy goods while on a business trip. None had cheese sauce.

Annoying? Definitely. The real problem, however, is Kraft’s response to Engel’s issue and her efforts to communicate the issue. “We apologize for this issue. We currently do not have any quality issues with our gluten-free Kraft Mac macaroni and cheese,” the brand commented. Engel replied: “Then why did I open 4 boxes without bags of cheese?”

Engel’s problem with Kraft wasn’t just the inconvenience of not having mac and cheese on hand. She said her gluten-free diet stemmed from celiac disease, an autoimmune disease she was diagnosed with five years ago.

In people with celiac disease, gluten — proteins found in wheat, barley and rye — triggers an immune response in the small intestine, leading to symptoms such as diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, bloating or anemia, and poor absorption of nutrients. Engel said Kraft’s Mac & Cheese has been a “comfort food” for her as she works through her complex relationship with food with a therapist and nutritionist, but now the situation has forced her to reevaluate that. “It doesn’t make you feel safe,” she said. “It feels more isolated.”

Luckily, TikTokers, who are always willing to fight for petty justice against unsatisfactory food products, supported Engel, with creators leaving comments like, “Don’t Kraft gaslight you” and “Nah, that’s just how they reacted.” Others urged Engel to open the boxes in the store so she could prove her point, or to check the “lot” numbers of the boxes to see if they matched – which is why they all may have been missing a bag of cheese.

However, Kraft now appears to have changed its position. The company has responded to the drama and appears to be addressing it directly with Engel. In a statement to Yahoo Life, a Kraft spokesperson said, “Our team has reached out to Abby to apologize for her experience and to rectify the situation. We are working closely with our response teams to ensure that all future requests are treated with the care and respect they deserve. Our quality assurance team will also thoroughly investigate the production issue to determine the root cause and resolve it.”

And in a TikTok posted Friday, Engel confirmed that Kraft—or rather, an executive named Larry—reached out to her to apologize for the issue and work on a solution, noting that she was told they were working on an internal investigation.

“I don’t want to stop buying Kraft, I don’t,” Engel said, noting that Larry also confirmed that they would first look into how Kraft’s social media team commented on her post.

While the mystery of the missing cheese sauce remains, Engel said she has received love from other brands. Both Stouffer’s and California Pizza Kitchen sent her gluten-free items as reinforcements. But Engel said she has no interest in leaving Kraft Mac & Cheese. Let’s hope she gets her cheddar soon – or at least what’s actually in those unfortunately delicious cheese sauce concoctions.