10 July 2016

TRIBE - a postal snack box for outdoorsy people (@NLi10) @thetribeway


I'm a very cynical guy, so when an advert for yet another one of those annoying "snacks by post" thing pops up on my FB feed with the first box for £1 I think "sure, that'll be an easy rant".  Bonus points because it's themed around the exercise community and with two festivals in 1 month I'll be stocking up on good snacks to take with me.

The box in question is TRIBE and it arrived about a week before Glastonbury - perfect


Those of you who hang around here regularly will have seen some of the contents in those Glastonbury round-ups I did (1 & 2) but for everyone else here's the details.


You get a lovely Graze-like flat box that fits through the door.  You get a lot of branding that convinces you that you made a good choice (unless you are my boss who has at least 6 of the Graze boxes unopened on her desk on any given day).  The blurb is fairly reassuring though, I don't want processed snacks but I also don't want a box full of stuff I can buy on the highstreet for a lot less.


And here is what we did get. Two pick me up bars, two bags of nuts/seeds and one protein bar.  While I'm paying £1 this is amazing - you only need one hit to get your money back. With the full price of £8 a box per month (dropping to £6.50 a box if you are needing one a week) you are going to need to realistically average £1.50 per item with 50p for postage.  For simplicity I'll ask the question - "was this worth £2" of each of the bits as I go.


Here we have the Other Stage at Glastonbury and I presume New Order, and the first of the pick me up energy bars.  Cherry isn't a flavour I'd put at the top of my list but this was good.  It had great texture, a rich strong flavour and was more filling than it's size suggested. It kept the energy levels up and despite being in my bag for a couple of days was fine.  Worth £2.


I'm always skeptical about 'protein' bars.  Here we see the Banana flavour with the long drop toilets by the acoustic tent in the background. Not the best place to eat...


Further in to the site (just below the stone circle at the post office) I cracked it open.  It's not as banana rich or as proteiny as I'd expected.  It doesn't have that papery soy texture and instead is a welcome sweet sticky bar, but with a lot of texture too.  The added grains and such really make this a pleasure.  I ate it over two snack sessions and it's also worth £2.

Hadrian's trail mix was less impressive.  It's some dried fruit and some cashews.  The mix is great and it's filling as it goes, but I'd usually pay a lot less for a lot more.  This is probably a £1 snack in fairness, but as in theory it could have been replaced by something better it was a disappointment (so much so that I forgot to get a pic). I've unchecked it from my preferences so I'll never be sent this one again.

Also in the box was some adverts for other postal boxes, some inspirational leaflets and a quote about marathons that was confusing as it suggests running in circles for no reason is human nature. Maybe its a metaphor.


I returned home with a seed mix and another energy bar which I'll use to survive next weekend's festival work.  Having already got £5 worth out of my £1 purchase , and assuming the other pick me up bar is just as good, I'm letting this one ride on and I'll get another box (probably just after the Latitude festival unfortunately).  There are 19 snack options on the site at the moment in four categories (the seeds and trail mix are separate) so hopefully I won't get too many duplicates and can review the rest in the field at some point and let you know whether I kept the boxes going.

If you also want a £1 box you can use my referral code TRIBERICH4 and sign up here.  You can cancel after the first box and also pause the subscription whenever you like so they don't fill your desk with nuts.  

When we get things like this as PR e-mails there is always the temptation to be a little kinder than you otherwise would.  I'm really fed up of the terrible postal boxes (just go to the highstreet and buy some nuts there!!) so was ready to go for the throat, but this one surprised me with the quality of the produce.  Sure, it's probably a bit too expensive for what it is if you go for the weekly option, but as a summer treat or a reward for specific outdoor activities it seems fine.  If you are buying similar things for regular exercise and outdoors activities then this may just be what you need.




No comments: