Boxes of gluten-free Kraft Mac & Cheese are missing sauce packets. It took 1 woman's TikToks to address the issue.

The best part of boxed mac and cheese is the cheese sauce. What happens when you open a box of gluten-free Kraft Mac & Cheese only to find none inside? That was the situation Abby Engel found herself in, when she purchased four boxes across four separate stores only to find that they were missing that crucial element. Engel, who lives in Michigan, explained in a video on TikTok that reaching out to Kraft didn’t solve the issue, as the company has sent her coupons for another free box — thus, she’s stuck in an endless loop of cheeseless, wheatless macaroni, if you will.

“The thing is, then I go in to use that coupon, and I get another box of Mac & Cheese, and I open it up and there's no sauce packet inside,” Abby, who has celiac disease and cannot eat gluten, explained in her Nov. 19 post. “So giving me a coupon to get another box of Mac & Cheese isn't solving the problem.”

Engel said that she had gone to not only different stores in her city, including Walmart and Kroger, but also went to a store to find the product while on a business trip. None had the cheese sauce in it.

Frustrating? Definitely. The real problem, however, lies in Kraft’s response to Engel’s issue and her efforts to report the problem. “We apologize for this issue. We’re not currently having any quality issues with our gluten-free Kraft Mac and Cheese,” the brand commented. Engel responded, “Then why have I opened 4 boxes with no cheese packets?”

Engel’s issue with Kraft wasn’t just about the inconvenience of not having mac and cheese on the ready. She shared that her gluten-free diet comes from having celiac disease, an autoimmune condition she was diagnosed with five years ago.

For those with celiac disease, gluten — the proteins found in wheat, barley and rye — triggers an immune response in your small intestine, leading to symptoms like diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, bloating or anemia, as well as malabsorption of nutrients. Engel said that Kraft’s Mac & Cheese has been a “comfort food” for her as she works on her challenging relationship with food with a therapist and nutritionist, but now, the situation has made her reevaluate that. “This does not make it feel safe,” she said. “This feels more isolating.”

Fortunately, TikTokers — who are always ready to fight for small-time justice against dissatisfactory food products — had Engel’s back, with creators making comments like, “Not Kraft gaslighting you” and “Nooo way they just responded this way.” Others called for Engel to open boxes directly in-store so she could prove her point or to check the boxes’ “batch” number to see if they match — hence why they may all have been missing a cheese packet.

Now, however, Kraft has seemingly changed its tune. The company responded to the drama and appears to be remedying it directly with Engel. In a statement to Yahoo Life, a spokesperson for Kraft says, “Our team has been in touch with Abby to apologize for her experience and to make things right. We are working closely with our response teams to ensure all future inquiries are treated with the care and respect they deserve. Our Quality Assurance team is also diligently investigating the production issue to determine the root cause and to fix 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 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 will be looking into how Kraft's social media team commented on her post in the first place.

While the mystery of the missing cheese sauce remains, Engel reported that she received love from other brands. Both Stouffer’s and California Pizza Kitchen sent her gluten-free products as a pick-me-up. But as Engel said — she has no interest in quitting Kraft Mac & Cheese. Let’s hope she gets her cheddar soon — or at least whatever is actually in those unfortunately delicious cheese sauce mixes.