Tag: Subscription Box (Page 3 of 3)

This is not a sponsored post. We pay for our subscription with our own money and have never been contacted by NatureBox to review their products. 

Look, snacks!

We just received our first NatureBox filled with six bags of snacks. NatureBox is essentially a monthly snack subscription service where you order resealable bags of snacks free of high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, sweeteners and flavors, transfats & hydrogenated fats. Subscribers can also sort the online listing of snacks by categories to avoid food allergens and GMO’s.

The snacks range from sweet to savory and you can pick them all out yourself or let Naturebox surprise you. We chose the snacks in our first box.

Regarding pricing, you can choose five snacks for $20, 10 for $30, or 20 for $50. Subscription box services always seem to offer promotional coupon codes and NatureBox is currently offering 50% off your first box. NatureBox states that to cancel one’s subscription, subscribers need to call at least five days before the next billing date listed on their online profile page.

We are always looking for snacks we can bring with us to work so we aren’t going out to grab more unhealthy convenience foods so we thought we’d give Naturebox at least two months to see if it’s worth the $20/month fee.

For our first five snacks, we chose sriracha roasted cashews, pb&j granola, whole wheat figgy bars, Honey Mustard Dippin’ Stix and peppery chickpeas. NatureBox threw in a bonus bag of Toasted Cheddar Stix. I don’t know why they capitalize some of their titles and not others. 

Here are our thoughts on our first box:

Cashews are one of my favorite nuts. I once embarassed myself at a party when I realized I had eaten all of the cashews out of the host’s mixed nut bowl.

These cashews had a pleasant sweet and salty flavor and carried a kick of heat. For whatever reason, I detect a slight fishy flavor that reminds me of fish sauce or kimchee. This could just be me, but I like fish sauce and kimchee so I don’t care. This is the smallest snack bag containing 4 oz while the other bags ranged between 4.5-6 oz.

The texture of this granola surprised me. I was expecting it to be crunchy but it’s soft. I like the peanut butter flavor and appreciate that it’s not terribly sweet. The granola would make a nice addition to a morning bowl of cereal or a work snack, but, we wish it was crunchier. I’m not a fan of chewy granola bars.

Sesame sticks have always been one of my favorite snacks and the honey-mustard flavoring reminds me of Snyder’s Pretzel Nibblers except a little sweeter.

Of all six snack bags, I find myself returning to these peppery chickpeas most frequently. They are light and crunchy and spicy with black pepper. I like these so much I will try one of the other flavors.

Not Pictured: Whole Wheat Figgy Bars
Jake specifically chose these figgy bars because he’s fond of Fig Newtons. I am not. He excitedly brought the bag with him to work and now there are no more figgy bars. For detailed photos, see this blog post from The Beauty Deputy.

The bag contained five, individually wrapped bars sized somehwere inbetween a Fig Newton and typical breakfast bar.

While Jake enjoyed the bars, he mentioned they didn’t strike him as any more or less compelling than a Fig Newton.

NatureBox generously added this sixth bonus snack bag of Toasted Cheddar Stix. Instead of being coated in honey-mustard, they are coated in cheese powder. I like their saltiness, but I taste a citric acid-like tang in the seasoning that I don’t love.

These are actually Jake’s favorite snack in the box.

Concluding Thoughts:
Our first month of NatureBox was a steal since we used the promotion to get 50% off our first box. Since NatureBox threw in an extra treat, we paid $10 for six bags of snacks. $20 a month for five bags of snacks seems steep but we’re going to give it at least one more month before we decide if we’d like to try Graze.

Friends recommended we try anything spicy, the dried pineapple, guacamole bites, lemon tea biscuits, masa crisps and sunshine chips. Interestingly, one person liked the Peanut Butter Nom Noms while another said it was the worst item they received.

Pluses:

• The ability to choose our snacks. My tastes run salty, so I’d be unsatisfied if the boxes were skewed in the sweet direction.
• The variety. There are so many snacks to choose, both savory and sweet.
• Snacks don’t contain artificial colors, flavors and sweeteners, and high fructose corn syrup and you to avoid GMO’s and common allergens. We live in a smaller community with limited grocery shopping options so this provides snacks we can’t necessarily find locally.
• It’s simply fun to receive a box of snacks each month.

Minuses:

• $20 for five bags of snacks is not cheap.
• The quantity in each bag of snacks varies.
• While some of our snacks were fine, they did not taste more or less compelling than what I could pick out in the bulk section of any grocery store.

I’m becoming a subscription box hopper. We plan to try NatureBox for at least one more month at its full-priced rate before deciding if we want to try Graze. I cancelled my ipsy subscription and ordered a cosmetic-only Memebox that’s scheduled to ship mid-May (because why wouldn’t you want to see an adopted Korean try Korean cosmetics?). Then, I’ll try Birchbox.