lunchbox – The Review Studio

Freddie’s Farm Fruit Snacks

Baby, Children, Easter, Family Life, Food & Drink, Gifts for children, Gluten Free, Lunchbox Fillers, Plastic free, snacks, Vegan, Vegetarian

Disclaimer – We have received this item for free or on a loan basis for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

For an alternative to chocolate this Easter, Freddie’s Farm have some delicious snacks made of fruit and vegetables. We were sent some to try in flavours Apple, Raspberry and Blueberry.

The Freddie’s Farm snacks are dehydrated, 100% British fruit made which have no added sugar but all of the benefits of fruit. There’s no concentrate or puree and are made on Freddie’s Farm, packaged in paper packets. Each pack is part of your 1-A-Day quota, and is both Dairy Free and Gluten Free. They contain more than just their fruit flavours though, with added beetroot, carrot and spinach to not only make the shapes work, but to add extra nutrition. You can’t taste the flavour of the vegetables though!

I think my favourite was the Apple flavour. Each one tastes of the fruit though, with the raspberry being the sweetest, apple being the most recognisable and the blueberry had a fruity taste at first then the flavour of the berry came through after a few seconds. I like the idea of having these as snacks for little hands because it helps with motor skills as well to have them pick up the little shapes, which look (and taste) a lot like sweets, but are more wholesome, and of course, have no unnatural sugars.

Each pack weighs 20 grams and can fit into pockets, or are great for picnics or lunchboxes and they make great baking ingredients, especially if you’re looking for some ideas over the Easter holidays of nutritious snacks to cook with. How about using the snacks for an Easter Egg hunt instead of chocolate?

A box of 12 packets can be bought online for £8.49 at: https://freddiesfarmsnacks.co.uk/product/mixed-fruit-shapes-12/

Capri Sun Limited Edition Halloween Packs

Autumn, Children, Drinks and Mixers, Family Life, Food & Drink, Halloween, Lunchbox Fillers, Vegan

Disclaimer: we received these products free of charge for the purpose of this review and all thoughts and opinions are our own.

With Halloween just around the corner, the shops are packed with an amazing assortment of spooky-themed goodies. In addition to the classic pumpkins, there’s a fantastic range of Halloween-inspired food and drinks which are perfect for Halloween parties. Our little witches and ghouls have been sampling some of these frightfully delicious treats, and the limited edition Halloween packs from Capri Sun have been a big hit this week. Each 200ml pouch showcases a fun, spooky character, and if you’re lucky enough to find a box that contains the golden ghost, you could win £1000!

RRP: £5 for 15, £3.25 for 8 available from all major UK grocery retailers including Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons

Fruit Snacks from Whitworths

Autumn, Children, Days Out, Family Life, health, Home, Lunchbox Fillers, snacks

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

It’s back to school in a few weeks and the dreaded lunchbox needs filling! Whitworths has some lovely snack ideas of dried fruits, perfect for the lunchbox, after school or for yourself at any time!

The Whitworths Sunny Raisins come in a pack of 6, each of 42.5 grams. One pack counts towards your child’s 5-a-day quota for fruit and vegetables so this is a brilliant way of getting nutrition into them especially as raisins are so tasty which is always the challenge with children’s food. These Whitworths raisins aren’t dried up at all, but have a very sweet taste and juicy too. One pack is enough for me to have with a sandwich at lunchtime and makes it feel like I’ve had something sweet instead of a chocolate bar or cake!

Whitworths also have the Sunny Snacks of Fruit Mix-Ups; Strawberries & Sultanas and Apricots & Mango. The packs are smaller at 18 grams each so don’t fill you up as much but they do give a hit of dried fruit. The Apricots & Mango have no added sugar, but both are very sweet without anything added. The tiny pieces make these good for cooking too if you’re adding dried fruit to a cake mix or for tiny hands to decorate cupcakes with you in the kitchen. These are great snacks for a lunchbox or taking on days out as they’re easily transported too and it doesn’t matter if they get hot.

The second sunny Fruit Mix-Ups flavour is Strawberries & Sultanas. These are no added sugar too and have loads of flavour. The dried strawberries are particularly tasty as you get the burst of strawberry flavour as you bite into them, then the texture of all the seeds! These are great for toddlers and smaller children who don’t like fruit as they’re super sweet but without the sugar.

It’s never been easier to get more healthy options into children’s diets with snacks like Whitworths’ Sunny Fruit Mix-Ups and Sunny Raisins, but always a good idea to test them yourself before they go back to school…

Fruit Mix-Ups £1.25 for 4: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/308099031

Raisins £2.40 for 6: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/258141777

Dole Kids Jellies

Children, Food & Drink, snacks

Disclaimer: We received this product free of charge for the purpose of this review and all thoughts and opinions are our own.

When I’m packing my children’s lunchboxes it’s a fine line between what the children want to eat and what they need to eat! Whilst it’s nice to include a sweet treat, it is important that they eat healthy and nutritious food too. When preparing lunchboxes, it is important to strike the right food balance, to ensure that they will eat enough to receive all the nutrients they need to help them stay energised and focused through the day. Snacks are an important part of lunchboxes and choosing the right ones can make a huge difference in overall nutrition.

One of the newest additions to my children’s lunchboxes is the Dole Kids Jellies, the fruity jellies are an excellent way to add a healthy, fun snack to my children’s lunches. Available in two different flavours, Orange Jelly with Mixed Fruit and Strawberry Jelly with Mixed Fruit they are made with 100% real fruit juice, making them a healthier alternative to the many sugar laden snacks that are currently available. Not only does the jelly taste fruity, it also contains real fruit pieces, adding a burst of natural flavour and texture. The fruit pieces contribute to the jelly’s overall nutritional value providing fibre and natural vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin C.

The Dole Kids Jellies come in handy sized pots with a fun characters on the packaging which our min reviewers loved. The pots are the perfect size for a lunchbox and make a great lunchtime treat.

At £1.79 for a pack of 4, Dole Kids Jelly is not only a healthy choice but an affordable one too.

Available from Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsburys

St Michel Choco Snacks

Children, chocolate, Family Life, Home, Lunchbox Fillers, snacks, Summer

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

The St Michel Muffin, Waffle, Burger and Donut Choco snacks have recently been launched in the UK and we were sent a sample of each to try for this summer.

Made completely free from palm oil with no preservatives, interestingly they are made with cage-free eggs, giving a better life to the hens. St Michel is France’s premiere cake and biscuit brand, in business since 1905 and very proud of how they select the best quality ingredients.

Each box has 6 individually wrapped cakes, each one weighing around 30 grams each. Each variety has a different shape and use of the chocolate, so you’ll soon have a preference as to whether you like your chocolate in the middle (Choco Burger) or a Choco Donut, dipped in chocolate instead. The Choco Muffins are just as tasty and probably more suited to adults wanting a snack in the office or on the go and the Choco Waffles make a fun treat for anyone.

They’re made in France with French ingredients including French wheat with each sponge cake in a different shape or formation and topped or filled with smooth chocolate. They certainly have that chocolate-y taste which gives you the sweet hit when you need it. The sponges are feather light and contain sunflower oil instead of palm oil to not only save the palm oil forests but the sunflower gives a different hit to the texture of the sponge. The chocolate, which is made of hazelnut paste, is deliciously decadent and just what you would imagine from French patisseries. Just keep them less than 25 degrees centigrade otherwise you’ll end up with a sticky mess this summer!

St Michel Choco snacks are a fabulous snack idea for anyone who loves cake, needs a snack or wants something with a bit more goodness than sweets during the day. Perfect for chocolate lovers too.

Available from £2.00 at Tesco, Waitrose and online at Ocado: https://www.ocado.com/products/st-michel-doomino-chocolate-584037011

Sistema’s Ocean Bound Plastic Lunchbox Range

camping, Children, Family Life, Home, Home & Garden, Lunchbox Fillers, Summer

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Watch any news programme, documentary or read social media about the changes in climate this summer, especially in Europe, and you’ll know that we are heading for self-destruction. Plastic in the ocean is one of the reasons that ocean life is being destroyed and affecting the temperatures, and there’s a lot of plastic out there.

New Zealand company Sistema makes food storage containers from recycled ocean bound plastic. That means that 35% of the plastic used in their products would have been sent to the oceans but are instead recycled and made into new. They’re also BPA free so have less of the nasty chemicals that can leach into food and be harmful when ingested.

We were sent two products to test as part of our Back to School coverage; the Bento Cube to Go (dark blue) and Ribbon Lunch To Go (turquoise). Each of the cute boxes comes with compartments inside which make them easier to use. The Bento Cube has one long (half) compartment and one quarter compartment which sit on top of compartments in the Cube of the same size, making 4 different areas. They are completely removeable so you can make the areas bigger if you don’t need to separate them. There’s also a small screw-lid pot which holds 150ml. The Ribbon Lunch To Go box similarly has compartments but this time the box is separated in two, with the smaller compartment housing another box which is divided into two, therefore making 3 compartments in all. There’s also another 150ml pot which is removeable and can be used for dressings, yoghurt or housing something that might affect the other contents.

All of the pieces for each set are dishwasher safe and the pots can be microwaved up to 100 degrees centigrade. These are a great size to go into a backpack for back to school, especially for older children who need something more generic and might be heating things up in the microwave. Adults will love these too with all the different removable compartments so you can adjust what you’re lunching on – leftovers one day and sandwiches the next. They’re built to last too so you can guarantee they’re still useable by the end of the school year as well as durable!

Available at Amazon, Asda, Tesco, Waitrose and other retailers from £5.62.

https://www.sistemaplastics.com/uk/1-1l-ribbon-lunch-with-mini-bite-recycled

https://www.sistemaplastics.com/uk/1-25l-bento-cube-with-yogurt-pot-recycled

KIND Caramelised Biscuit Nut Cereal Bar

Family Life, Food & Drink, health, Lunchbox Fillers

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

I’m a big fan of cereal bars. They’re great for snacks at home, or in your bag to go to work and children love them. KIND have a variety of cereal bars of different flavours, but all of them are high in fibre, high in protein and have no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. They’re gluten free too!

The team at KIND send us a box of their new Caramelised Biscuit Nut flavoured KIND bars to try, which have the same high fibre, high quality ingredients. The main food factor in these Caramelised Biscuit Nut KIND bars is nuts making up 81% of the bar overall. They actually contain peanuts, almonds and cashews with added spice biscuit and caramel. The result is a sweet, slightly sticky cereal bar with a honey coating and nutmeg and cinnamon flavouring. Despite the cinnamon, they don’t taste ‘Christmassy’ at all, more like the coffee biscuits you get in cafes when you order a latte.

I really enjoyed the KIND Caramelised Biscuit Nut bars and found them really filling as either a snack or part of a lunch. They have the added bonus of being high in fibre and have all the nutrients you find in nuts but with all of the flavour. The bars are great for protein too, although at 226 calories it’s not really a health bar, but will pack in the energy if you need a sugar rush in the afternoon.

As with all KIND bars, these became addictive! Everyone in the office loved them for both their flavour and texture, which is more for adults than children due to containing nuts. If you’re a fan of KIND bars, you’ll love these too!

More details at: https://www.kindsnacks.co.uk/products/kind-bars/caramelised-biscuit-nut

Purchase from Ocado, Waitrose and other stores from £1.30.