Thursday, May 10, 2012

Go Picnic, Part 1: Peanut Butter and Crackers

A few months ago, I spotted a line of ready to eat meals called Go Picnic
on Amazon. I immediately added them to my Amazon wish list, because they sounded so tasty. I bought two varieties of Go Picnic after spotting them at a chain drugstore today. Because it's so picture heavy, I'm breaking this review up into two posts:


Part 2: Turkey Pepperoni and Cheese: Classic Deli Meal

Part 1:

Peanut Butter + Crackers: All-Natural Meal
"A balanced meal featuring Peanut Butter & Co. Natural Peanut Butter, Partners Get Movin' Honey Wheat Crackers, Sweet Perry Orchards Unsweetened Applesauce, Annie's Homegrown Cheddar Bunny Crackers and Professor Zim Zam's All-Natural Jelly Jets. All-Natural."




A pull tab that allows the box to fold out into a lunch tray


Here is the box as a lunch tray


Partners Get Movin' Honey Wheat Crackers
"Made exclusively from simple, delicious, wholesome ingredients."


The honey wheat crackers were thick rectangle crackers dotted with salt.The flavor was a cross between graham crackers and sesame crackers. They were wheaty and buttery. I enjoyed the Get Movin' crackers very much. The package was difficult to open, though.


Annie's Homegrown Cheddar Bunnies
"All-natural baked snack crackers made of organic wheat and in clever bunny shapes."


The Cheddar Bunnies were definitely easier to open than the Get Movin' crackers. Although why would you want two different cracker packages for one meal ? Kind of redundant. That aside, the bunnies were just the right size for a snack. The Cheddar Bunnies tasted exactly like Cheese Nips, so I'd probably only choose one over the other based on price and sodium content.


Professor Zim Zam's All-Natural Jelly Jets
"Jelly Jets, the chewy delights will alight your tongue in a variety of fantastic all-natural colors and fruit flavors."


The packet of Professor Zim Zam's All-Natural Jelly Jets contained eight pieces of gummy candy. Each candy was supposed to be shaped like a jet, although I think they resemble sharks or arrows. There were two orange gummies, two lemon (yellow), three strawberry (red) and one apple gummy (green). The orange pieces had a very natural, juicy citrus flavor. The lemon tasted like lemon lollipops mixed with Pledge. The strawberries had a super weak fruit punch flavor. The apple gummy had a faint green apple taste. The Jelly Jets were overly chewy.


Sweet Perry Orchards Unsweetened Applesauce
"Simple and pure ingredients: apples, water and natural flavors. A convenient way to get a full serving of fruit anywhere you go. A GoPicnic exclusive!"

The label on the apple sauce cup says the ingredients are apples, water, natural flavor and asorbic acid (to maintain flavor). If you're eating right now, you'll want to skip this next line of the review: The applesauce was downright horrible. It was like someone added the flavors of juice, watered down cinnamon and vomit into the applesauce. Yuck! (None of those are listed or implied ingredients, before anyone fusses at me.) I have never tasted bad applesauce before. I hope that is the last time it ever happens.


Peanut Butter & Co. Smooth Operator Natural Peanut Butter
"No-stir natural peanut butter in a convenient squeeze pouch for easy distribution!"


Over the last year, I had seen various flavors of Peanut Butter and Co. mini packets at the grocery store (plain peanut butter, white chocolate, dark chocolate, etc). I had seen Peanut Butter and Co.'s restaurant on the Food Network a couple times. I thought I would really enjoy this peanut butter. It didn't quite work out that way. When I opened the peanut butter packet, a murky, semi-clear liquid (oil, I assume ?) squirted out from the top. It's a good thing I was at home wearing black shorts and not on an airplane in khaki pants, or I would have been very upset. So I held the packet over the cardboard box the subsequent times I tried to get peanut butter out. And still the oil or whatever it was kept coming out. Eventually I did get a better amount of peanut butter coming out. The peanut butter had a nice fresh, roasted flavor. If you ignore how much liquid preceded it : P Yeah, I know one of you is thinking "product may separate during shipping, blah blah blah." I think I'll stick with the Jif To Go mini cups of peanut butter, thank you very much.


Each box has a game and some fun facts inside.

"In a world where bunnies are the size of planes...anything is possible"

I have no idea what that means. It probably doesn't refer to the movie The Night Of The Lepus, although that would be pretty cool if it did.


Allergen Details
-Natural Peanut Butter: Contains: peanuts.
-Honey Wheat Crackers: Contains: wheat and milk. Manufactured on shared equipment with nuts, corn and sesame seeds.
-Cheddar Bunny Crackers: Contains: wheat and milk. Made on shared equipment that also processes egg and soy.
-Gummy Airplanes: Contains: wheat starch.
-Note: All items are individually wrapped and are manufactured and packaged in separate facilities.


Overall opinion of Peanut Butter + Crackers: All-Natural Meal: I give it a C-. The peanut butter needs to be less liquidy. The gummies were too chewy (and quite frankly a choking hazard if you share with kids). The apple sauce was dreadful. Both cracker varieties were delicious, but I suggest paring it down to one pack of crackers + one non-cracker item. This meal kit is not entirely hopeless, though, as there is still room to change. Hopefully that happens soon.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Possibly the reason your peanut butter was oily was because you didn't mix it together before opening. It says it right at the top of the package to mix it together.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the products were past the expiration date -- bad applesauce, separated peanut butter, stale chews?

Anonymous said...

I just finished eating some of the cinnamon vomit that you called it. It tasted just fine to me. I didn't go into this thinking I was getting a gourmet meal. I actually think these would be perfect for a meal to keep in your car in the winter in case of emergencies, etc. The gummy jets do look like airplanes, I should know I work for aircraft company! No complaints here!!

Megan said...

" The gummy jets do look like airplanes, I should know I work for aircraft company!"

I grew up in military towns with lots of planes in the sky. What's your point ?

Anonymous said...

I had the one with apple sauce in it. It did not look like the apple sauce in the picture you have. The apple sauce I had did not have any cinnamon in it and maybe that is why it didn't taste bad. I didn't care for the crackers (not the bunny ones) but it is just a matter of taste I suppose. I like the fact that they are made of natural ingrediance. BTW I would definately recommend the ones with the salted caramel sucker. That made the whole meal. Oh and as far as the comment with the bunnies as big as/ bigger than the planes they were refering to the bunny crackers and the plane gummies in the meal and their sizes. For those who like natural food. These meals are worth it and they are filling.