Review: EasyLunchboxes

Recently Kelly Lester at EasyLunchboxes asked me if I was interested in reviewing her lunch box system. I’ve been seeing these lunch boxes on the bento blogs for a while now and I was curious to see how they would work for my family so I was happy to accept the offer. I was sent a set of four lunch boxes like the ones pictured above and a cooler (mine was red, not blue) to try out.

The boxes consist of two pieces. The main component is the box designed to hold food which is divided into one large and two small sections. A single lid covers all three sections. The boxes are dishwasher and microwave safe and they stack neatly when the boxes are full. They also can be stacked in a nested fashion to take up less cupboard space when they are stored.

I’ve been using these boxes for about two months now, so I’ve really put them through their paces. I’ve sent them to school with my six-year-old many times and I’ve packed lunches for my husband a few times. I’ve also used them to pack meals for my toddler and I to share two or three times.

Some of the things I particularly like about this product:

• These boxes really do make lunch packing easy. Packing bentos requires a bit of planning and strategy to get everything in the box and keep it from moving around in transit. I’ve been doing it for long enough now that it’s second nature to me, but the divided sections in this box allow me to relax a bit and add items to the lunch a bit more recklessly. Yep — you read that right. I said “recklessly”. Woooo!
• The boxes are good quality. They’ve been through my dishwasher many times now and haven’t warped at all. My husband also heated his lunches in the microwave a few times and the boxes didn’t get bendy or wobbly in that disconcerting way that makes you feel like you’re eating melted plastic.
• I like that they stack. Since these boxes are on the larger side, they could have a really big footprint in my lunch box cupboard, but when they’re stacked they don’t take up much room at all.
• I also appreciate that I can send a full day’s worth of food and without having to pull out several boxes and lids.
• They’re plain enough looking that big kids and grown men aren’t going to be embarrassed by them.

Some of the things I didn’t particularly like:

• The big box can be tricky to pack bento-style because of it’s large size. It’s obviously designed to hold a sandwich and if I’m actually sending a sandwich it works wonderfully, but when I’m sending a more bento-style lunch I’ve occasionally had trouble getting enough food in there to keep everything from moving around in transit.
• I’m not so keen on the cooler bag. While it works just fine at holding the lunchbox and keeping it cold, its square shape made it tricky to get the zipper around the 90 degree angles at the corners. My six-year-old brought it home partially unzipped a few times because he had trouble with it and stuff spilled out into his back pack. It’s also kind of blah looking which makes it a tough sell with my kid.
• The large size of the lunch box makes it almost impossible to fit it into any other cooler bag. So even if you’re not so keen on the cooler bag, you’re kind of stuck with it.

In Conclusion:

I really like these lunch boxes! They very quickly became staples in my lunch box collection and I find myself reaching for them several times per week. There are a couple  minor annoyances but they’re just…er…minor. Whether someone is new to bento-packing or lunch box collector like myself, I think these boxes are an excellent option. At $13.95 for four boxes they are also priced very well — especially compared to similar options.

EasyLunchboxes, coolers and small Mini-Dippers that fit inside these boxes are available at Amazon.com.

---

Disclosure: EasyLunchboxes.com sent me one of their sets of four lunch boxes and a red cooler bag to test out for this review. I only have three of the lunch boxes now though because my husband (ahem…not my 6-year-old!) left the cooler with a lunch box in it on the train. This post contains affiliate links