By Arielle Nguyen
Back in my day, I would run to the lunch tables at my elementary school to save the best spot — a little patch of shade with a breeze — with my Disney Princess lunch bag in one hand and my best friend in another. We’d eat underneath the big blue canopy until the recess bell rang, and even then, we’d usually hang around the lunch tables. Most of the time, I’d eat either a sandwich or a Lunchables, specifically the nacho cheese and salsa combo. That hit the spot.
Nowadays, I am basically the same! Sitting at a lunch table with my “Skibidi Toilet” lunch bag, scarfing down a Lunchly Fiesta Nachos in one hand with a refreshing PRIME in the other, earbuds in and watching the newest episode of the Talk Tuah Podcast. Life is good.
Obviously, I’m lying. But I say with the utmost sincerity that Lunchly is just a capitalist copy of Lunchable— however, the taste of both is merely identical.
What is Lunchly?
Lunchly is a brand of snack kits for kids created by content creators Olajide “KSI” Olatunji, Logan Paul and Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson. KSI and Paul founded the energy drink brand, PRIME, which comes with every Lunchly meal, and Donaldson founded the chocolate and snack brand, Feastables. Lunchly was then launched on Sept. 16, a meal kit containing PRIME, Feastables and a respective meal. Since its establishment, it has garnered quite a bit of controversy. Unsurprisingly — who are their creators, again?
Fiesta Nachos: stale or alright?
Due to a shortage of Lunchly, I was only able to acquire the Fiesta Nachos box … in Los Angeles.
The Fiesta Nachos is a meal kit containing nacho chips with queso blanco and salsa. It also comes with a strawberry-banana-flavored PRIME Hydration drink and a milk-chocolate Feastable.
The nachos were only mildly stale, but it was consumed down to the last crumb. The salsa was on the sweeter side. The cheese, well, “I like my cheese drippy, bruh” indeed. I, along with many others, were wary of the cheese. It felt a little too stretchy, akin to slime, but it tasted like your typical cheddar cheese sauce. If you were to blindfold me and feed me Lunchly’s Fiesta Nachos and Lunchables’ Nachos with Cheese Dip, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
And that is a bad thing — if Lunchly is a different brand from Lunchables, then why is it that when I eat Lunchly, I think it’s Lunchables? Lunchly can’t be a direct copy of Lunchables … with the same three meal kits (a “create-your-own” pizza, ham/turkey and cheese sandwiches and nacho cheese dip) … right?
The PRIME Hydration drink tasted more like a banana yogurt drink. Honestly, PRIME shouldn’t even be marketed to children. Its brand was made to be an energy drink! The amount of caffeine in that little can is enough to launch kids into space. Although PRIME Hydration, a bottle, does not contain caffeine, it’s important to monitor your children ingesting a drink meant to replenish an athlete’s fluids.
The Feastables milk-chocolate bar was basic, with nothing much to say … which basically describes the entire line. Lunchly’s Fiesta Nachos wasn’t much of a party, and I wasn’t feeling very nostalgic or overjoyed to be eating it.
The Moldy Cheese Controversy
Perhaps it is for good reason that I don’t want more — we all have seen the moldy cheese incident.
Rosanna Pansino, an American YouTuber best known for her baking show, Nerdy Nummies, recently reviewed Lunchly’s “The Pizza” and, shockingly, it was moldy. Of course, it’s moldy! These three content creators aren’t foodies nor do they understand how preservatives work. Lunchly was made to be healthier than its older and (arguably) better counterpart, Lunchables, but is that really the case when their meals come moldy?
Lunchly’s website provides a comparison chart with Lunchables, displaying rather minute differences. However, the main difference that caused the mold is the amount of preservatives. Lunchly’s products contain fewer preservatives to promote healthier meals, but preservatives are added to foods for a reason! Focusing on the health of children is perfectly kind behavior but at the expense of mold. What? I’d never!
Logan Paul’s rather … interesting response
Paul responded to this controversy in such a way that I’m not even surprised anymore. Paul is an American social media influencer, professional wrestler, a lover of controversy and recently, a co-founder of a moldy lunch kit.
“It’s just crazy to me that we’re a $4 lunch kit, and in the first four weeks, our headquarters had a bomb threat,” Paul said in an X video. “We’d love to think this is all just a coincidence, but nah, [we’re] calling cap.”
In the video, he mentions how the mold could be due to rough mishandling and trouble in transit. I understand that perfectly well, but his response easily comes off as condescending. It’s a little less down-to-earth and more defiant.
“Just like any product you buy, problems can arise and our retail partners are great, they’ll offer a full refund,” Paul said in the video. “We’re going to keep innovating and improving our product as we attempt to disrupt this archaic industry that’s been run by the same corporate giants for the past 120 years. It is a new era and the opps are going to have to try harder.”
Crazy. Logan Paul, this is the food you’re serving to children. Maybe attempt to be more wary? Maybe think your actions through just once. Maybe don’t “make a severe and continuous lapse of your judgment.”
The verdict?
Lunchly is less of a meal kit intended to help kids grow and more of a money-hungry ploy to market to KSI, Paul and Donaldson’s respective youth audience. I wouldn’t buy it or even look at it.
The verdict? It was fine. Nothing special. However, based on what I was fed, I wouldn’t go in for seconds. In fact, I’d leave crumbs.
