A while back I saw an offer for 'Graze' on Martin's Money Saving Tips email. Graze deliver a box of healthy snacks to your home or place of work in the post and were offering the first box free and the second at half price. Thinking this was too good to be true and that there would be a catch I ignored it. I have since read positive reviews of Graze and again saw on my trusty email from Martin that they were offering the first box for free and that you could claim £1 cashback on certain sites! This time I jumped at the chance to get free food! I'm always snacking in the office whether it's chocolate, biscuits or crisps and as well as being very unhealthy it was costing quite a lot! I fully intended on trying the box, possibly the second, half price box too and then opting out before paying the full amount. Needless to say, weeks later I am still receiving weekly Graze boxes and am actually sat eating one right now as I type.

-- What's the deal? --

OK, so Graze were offering a free first box for everyone with the second one at half price. The deal has now changed so that the first box is half price, although there are lots of offers around which can overcome this issue. The idea is clearly to get as many people to join as possible and hope that either they will love the boxes of healthy snacks and continue to receive it (as I do!) or possibly forget to opt out (which I can imagine happens a lot!). A full priced box is £3.49 so at half price £1.74 it is still excellent value for what you receive.

When you have signed up to Graze on the website you have the option of two types of box: a nibblebox or a nutritionbox. The nibblebox is their most popular option with over 100 snacks available to choose from including breads, yoghurt dipped fruits, nuts, flapjacks, olives, crackers, dried fruit, seeds and chocolate. The nutritionbox comprises of just the healthiest snacks, put together by the nutrition team at Graze and are packed with vitamins and omegas. These boxes are picked for you whereas the nibbleboxes are full of the things that you love.

If and when you select the nibblebox, there is an option to browse and rate all of the 100+ options. Under headings of flapjack, crackers, olives, deli topped focaccia and dried fruit and nuts you can rank the products separately into four different categories;

LOVE - your favourite things that you would like more often
LIKE - the things that you would enjoy
TRY - things that you may not have tasted before that you would like to try out
BIN - the things that you don't like or want.

For the more adventurous you can stick with the standard option of 'try' for everything, but for people like myself who don't like nuts, or for those who can't have certain things in their diet you can tailor these boxes to suit your needs by binning anything you definitely don't want in your box.

-- My boxes --

The boxes measure 25cm by 17cm and are only 3cm in depth which means they are the perfect size to fit through a letterbox. Contained in a brown cardboard box, there are 4 punnets, each filled with a different snack. The punnet has a plastic wrap over the front which states the name of the product and what is in it.
Each box also comes with a personalised booklet with your name on, nutritional information about what's in your box, which I think is an excellent touch. On the back it has information about the packaging and how to recycle it.

-- OK, now for the important part. What came in my boxes? --

BOX 1
- 'West Country cheddar, red onion and chutney focaccia'. 120 calories with 1.7g of fat (saturates). This bread looked delicious but unfortunately was a little dry and chewy. It reminded me of 'stay fresh' bread which to me never tastes fresh! 2/5
- 'Strawberries and cream' - dried strawberries, green raisins and white chocolate buttons. 134 calories and 1.1g fat (saturates). I loved the taste of these dried fruits with white chocolate and it really did taste of strawberries and cream! Also represented one of my 5 recommended daily portions of fruit/vegetables. 4/5
- 'Jaffa cake' - a mix of large pieces of dark chocolate with orange infused raisings. 215 calories and 3.6g of far (saturates). The dark chocolate with orange raisins gave the illusion of eating a jaffa cake. Yummy! 5/5
- 'Orange and ginger flapjack' - delicious! 240 calories with 4g fat (saturates). A lovely oatie treat which didn't make me feel guilty! 5/5

BOX 2
- 'Sweet Goan curry crackers'. 106 calories and 2.7g fat (saturates). These curry rice crackers were absolutely delicious! Very tasty and knowing that they were much healthier than my usual crisps made it so much better. 5/5
- 'Funky Gibbon'- banana coins, cashew nuts and milk chocolate rice puffs. I don't actually like cashew nuts so ended up giving these away, although the banana and chocolate puffs tasted delicious together. Again at only 160 calories and 1.9g fat (saturates) I didn't feel guilty getting my chocolate fix. 3/5
- 'Fruit Squash' - dried blueberries, mango and pumpkin seeds. This is the kind of healthy snack at 170 calories and 1.8g fat (saturates) that I know I should be eating instead of my chocolate bars and crisps! It was okay and again represented one of my 5 recommended daily portions of fruit/vegetables. 3/5
- 'Honeycomb flapjack' - another delicious flapjack! At 235 calories and 3.7g saturated fat I didn't feel entirely guilty eating this flapjack as soon as I got the box! 5/5

BOX 3
- 'Cherry tomato, basil and pesto focaccia'. I am well aware that this sounds amazing, however I was left disappointed as again, the bread was a bit too dry. The toppings were delicious but the rest of the bread was just average. 120 calories and 0.5g fat (saturates). 2/5
- 'Ooh la la' - green raisins, jumbo raisins and white chocolate drops. 181 calories and 4.1g fat (saturates) and also one of my five portions of fruit and vegetables. I sometimes eat raisins in my cereal but have never thought to snack on them, however after enjoying the mix so much I will be trying to recreate this as an afternoon snack at work. 4/5
- Korean chilli rice crackers - yummy! At only 117 calories and 3.8g of fat (saturates) these were a delicious, almost guilt free snack and were even nicer than the Goan rice crackers of a few weeks earlier. They were slightly hotter too which was good. 5/5
- 'Love mix' - dried cherries, goji berries and apricots. 102 calories and 0g of fat which makes this one of the healthiest options available and represents TWO of my 5 recommended daily portions of fruit/vegetables. Wow! It was tasty too! 4/5

So all in all, as you can see from my rates, I've been very pleased with my boxes. I was half hoping that the first two wouldn't be so good and I would have just cancelled my account but have no intention of doing so now.

The food does not have to be refrigerated and can last up to a week in its own box so if you're not feeling hungry you don't have to eat it there and then.

-- Can I cancel after the free box? --

Yes. Even when signing up for the first free box you are asked for your card details. It is obvious why they need to do this but it shouldn't be a deterrent as there is no obligation to continue with Graze after the free trial. It is a very easy to use website and easy to opt out after the free box, the half price box, or even after a few months. On the website just click on the tab for 'my deliveries' which is actually the default page, and go to 'box options'. There you can postpone a box if you don't want one that week, change your delivery day or even cancel all future boxes. There is also a facility to enter all of your holidays for the year into a calendar and Graze will automatically cancel your order for those occasions.
Save the world and get healthy!

Graze are doing their bit to help the environment with their delivery boxes made entirely from sustainable materials. The plastic punnets are made from 80% recycled material and can also be recycled again. They try to limit waste and any leftover food is given to local homeless charities in London.

Graze always use the best possible produce and source their products locally whenever possible. They also try to stick to organic produce but their priority is taste so they are not organically certified. Graze do not use artificial colouring or flavours in their food so you can eat their products knowing that the products are natural. There is also a facility on their website to view any foods that are not suitable for a vegan diet (there are only 29 in total) and anything unsuitable for coeliacs (31 products).

According to their website the average box contains 3 portions of your 5 fruit and vegetables a day so it's great for your health too. This hasn't been the case with mine so far but that's mainly because of the items that I have chosen! It also encourages us to get a wider variety of minerals and vitamins than you would usually get during the day and is great for keeping energy up as all office workers will know about the dreaded 3.00 p.m. lull! Grazing throughout the day can help you beat this and stop you picking at other more unhealthy things like cakes and biscuits! Graze can also help you lose weight as the foods stabilise your blood sugar and make your body better at burning fat.

-- Overall --

I have had a fantastic experience with Graze so far and can't understand why everyone hasn't signed up! The free box is a great way for them to attract customers and their excellent service and great food means that these people will often continue their membership. My boxes are delivered with the post every Thursday morning which for me is the perfect day as I'm often flagging in the office by the end of the week. I try and make the box last me through Thursday and Friday but it's often gone within a few hours, despite the fact that the website tells me it should last up to four days! The fact that you can choose what kinds of things you want to arrive means that you are guaranteed to like the selection meaning that they will have very few unhappy customers. All in all, I would recommend this to anyone, whether you're a serial snacker like me or just fancy the free box - it's definitely worth a try!

-- Notes --

If you have a Topcashback or Quidco account make sure you order your first Graze box through these sites. You can get £1 cash back.

Also, when you sign up you are given a code to pass on to your friends. If they quote this code when they sign up not only will they get their own free box and a second box at half price, but you will get £1 credit for each person you sign up towards your next box.

If anyone would like to give it a try please leave me a comment or send me a message and I'll give you my code which will get you a free box and give me £1 towards my next!

Happy grazing!