Product Review: Trudeau’s FUEL Collection

By Micah Cheek

In the spirit of avoiding a sad desk lunch, I packed a lunch using some items from the FUEL Collection, a lunch carrier set from Trudeau.

I prepared a red pepper salad for lunch, along with pecans and chips, the most fragile snack I could think of. The red pepper salad went in the egg-shaped Stainless Steel Food Jar, which proved to be very leak resistant and kept my salad cold. The rounded edges make it attention grabbing, especially at a desk during lunch. The steel interior made cleanup easy. Additionally, the bare metal you see when you open the bowl matches nicely with the set’s color scheme. The Stainless Steel Food Jar has a suggested retail price of $24.99.

My chips went into an included Snack Pocket made of the same material as the main lunch bag. The Pockets have a suggested retail price of $12.99 for a two pocket set. The bag looks flat, but against all odds, my chips remained intact.

The Condiment Set features little condiment jars made to look like miniatures of the Stainless Steel Food Jar. I used one to hold vinaigrette for my salad. It performed admirably, not letting any oil seep into my lunch bag during transit. While it holds runny liquids like vinaigrette well, the Condiment Set is also sized to hold a sandwich-perfect portion of mustard or mayonnaise. You wouldn’t guess just by looking, but the FUEL Collection cutlery fits perfectly into the condiment jars, making products like jam and hummus an easy option. The Condiment Set comes in sets of three jars, and has a suggested retail price of $5.99.

A water bottle is also available for the collection. It only holds 15 ounces of fluid, but it is sturdily built and easily cleaned. The spout is wide enough that it could be effectively used for smoothies or unfiltered juices. The spout is also in a straw setup, with a flexible tip that won’t hurt your teeth if you bite it. Called the Splash Bottle, this bottle retails for $9.99.

All the separate parts of the collection fit snugly into the Classic Bag, which has a papery plastic outside reminiscent of a brown paper bag, and a thermally insulated plastic layer inside. The bag follows a muted color pattern, centered around sage green, eggshell white and charcoal gray.

For someone who frequents the convenience store hot dog bar as often as I do, eating a real meal with color-coordinated containers is a refreshing experience. I think I enjoyed my meal more than I would have if I had packed it in a disposable plastic bag. The only thing I didn’t like about the aesthetic was the Snap Cutlery Set. While it worked perfectly well and was color coordinated, the proportions of the fork and spoon make them look like the entry-level silverware for toddlers. That said, their small size allowed them to fit into the bag efficiently with everything else. The Snap Cutlery Set retails for $5.99.

The use of Velcro strips to hold the Classic Bag and Snack Pocket closed was an interesting move away from the usual zipper sealing closures. My main concern with it was in washing out the bag, with the possibility of water getting trapped in the strip’s fibers. With hand washing, the bags cleaned up easily, and pressing a cloth into the Velcro fibers is effective at drying them out. The bags can be turned inside out, but I found it unnecessary for cleaning up dry snack residue. Unlike more traditional bags, the Classic Bag does not seal horizontally along the top. Two long strips of Velcro are laid out vertically along opposing sides of the bag. To seal, I rolled the top down so that one strip of Velcro comes in contact with the other, closing up just like an old-fashioned brown paper bag. It’s a system I haven’t seen in other lunch containers and is surprisingly effective. Even though most of the bag’s mouth isn’t held together, the rolling action that seals it is surprisingly strong, which allowed me to turn the full bag upside down and shake it without the Velcro coming loose.

Price may be a concern for some consumers. The full retail value of this entire lunch set is about $60, although the pieces are sold separately. However, the set looks composed yet casual, seals very well and is sturdy. All FUEL products are BPA-free as well and include a lifetime warranty. Many are available in Kiwi and Raspberry colors. This set is perfect for the customer who is willing to spend a little extra to have a lunch tote that will impress daily and last a long time or who’s picking and choosing specific containers to meet individual needs rather than splurging on the entire set at once.