Go Picnic, Part 2: Turkey Pepperoni and Cheese

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 1: Peanut Butter and Crackers: All Natural Meal

Part 2:

Turkey Pepperoni and Cheese: Classic Deli Meal
"A balanced meal featuring Bridgford Turkey Pepperoni Slices, Crunchmaster Multi-Seed Crackers, Copper Cowbell Asiago Gourmet Cheese Spread, Mariani Dried Cranberries & Pineapple and Brown & Haley Almond Roca Buttercrunch Toffee. Gluten Free."

"Just when you thought your hunger would win"
This turned out to be unintentional irony. Keep reading.

Crunchmaster Multi-Seed Crackers
"Crunchy oven-baked 100% whole grain crackers. Crispy and delightful"

The Crunchmaster crackers were glossy and had a great sesame taste. The ingredient list included sesame seeds, flax seeds, quinoa seeds and amaranth seeds. I would buy these crackers.

Mariani Dried Cranberries & Pineapple
"Great benefits never tasted so good. Only the best cranberries and pineapple make up this mix."

I love dried fruit. Normally I could eat it by the handful. The Marianu fruit, however, is another story. The dried pineapple had a ridiculous amount of powdered sugar coating it. Plus it bordered on being crunchy. And I mean in an overly sugared way, not as in stale. The pineapple had a very unpleasant as a result. The dried cranberries were not as coated in powdered sugar, so the natural cranberry flavor was able to shine through better. The cranberries were still kind of crunch, unfortunately. On a side note: I have had Mariani fruit in the past and it never tasted sugary and crunchy. I'm not sure what happened with this product.

Copper Cowbell Asiago Gourmet Cheese Spread
"A smooth, rich gourmet cheese spread with classic Asiago flavor from Copper Cowbell, GoPicnic's exclusive brand."

The asiago cheese was super shiny. Some of the ingredients included cheddar, water, cream, milk, whey, natural flavor and cheese cultures. It tasted and smelled like an oily paste made from parmesan. You know it's pretty bad when I won't finish off a sample of cheese.

Brown & Haley Almond Roca Buttercrunch Toffee Candy
"Delicious buttercrunch toffee. A true original!"

The Almond Roca came in a pink outer wrapper and an inner gold foil wrapper. The inside tasted like a too chewy mix between a Butterfinger and toffee. The outside was coated in chocolate and almonds. I didn't care for that part. Plus there wasn't enough chocolate. The Roca was greasy and not tasty to me. Wikipedia tells me it's been around since 1923, so I guess a lot of other people enjoy it. It definitely is not my cup of tea : P

Bridgford Turkey Pepperoni Slices
"With 65% less fat than regular pepperoni but all of the flavor."

This is the turkey pepperoni, plus a popsicle stick to scoop up the asiago cheese. I really, really hated the pepperoni. As you can tell, it is extremely greasy. It's actually greasier than regular pepperoni I've bought. And yes, it's more so than regular pepperoni straight out of the package and regular pepperoni that's been baked in the oven. It's that oily. The Turkey Pepperoni didn't even taste like pepperoni. It was more like someone combined beef jerky fat and cheese fat, rolled them out into slices and then dipped them into grease : X Absolutely disgusting. The pepperoni packet had no tear strip and was hard to open. I had to look for scissors to get it open. Which is problem for those of us that thought "Oh hey, I can take this meal on a plane and have a fun snack." Between that and the grease it leaves on your fingers, this variety is definitely not a travel friendly snack.

Allergen Details
-Multi-seed Crackers: Contains: soy.
-Asiago Cheese Spread: Contains: milk.
-Dried Cranberries & Pineapple: This product is packed on equipment that also packages products that contain milk, soy and tree nuts.
-Buttercrunch Toffee: Contains: tree nuts, milk products and soy. Manufactured on shared equipment that processes peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, soy and wheat.
-Note: All items are individually wrapped and are manufactured and packaged in separate facilities.

The only part of the Turkey Pepperoni and Cheese: Classic Deli Meal I liked was the Crunchmaster Crackers. My rating for this variety is a D. Even excluding the Almond Roca (which some people obviously like), it was an unsatisfying meal that I could not finish. The dried fruit needs less powdered sugar. The pepperoni is too greasy and difficult to open. The cheese needs a more natural flavor. Like I said in the previous review, this is still room for improvement.