Fostering Goodbyns =)

I’m writing this blog to bring you up-to-date, but also to share some of my own experiences with the Goodbyn lunchbox. Yes, we do have two in our home now…they aren’t the final product but they are eliminating our need for baggies –awesome!!!

We know that everyone is anticipating the arrival of the Goodbyns… Our team (Cascade Engineering, Emerald City Graphics, Rob, Miguel, Soni and myself…) is working as hard as possible to bring the best product we can to market and we really appreciate your patience and enthusiasm.

The night that I brought the babies (Goodbyns) home the girls were super thrilled. They have been waiting for a year-and-a-half to get these things. Last fall I wouldn’t let them get new lunchboxes, saying, “The Goodbyn is coming!!!” You can imagine how pleased they were when the two arrived via Fed Ex.

I wanted to share some photos from our first shopping where we were specifically thinking about putting food in the Goodbyn. I’ll provide captions to explain what’s going on and share insights that I had and that I believe most people will have when they experience the shift of going from baggies to Goodbyn!

I love this image. "Can we take watermelon in our Goodbyn?!" Yes! 

How about cucumber? Sure. As we walked around the produce section the girls were really excited thinking about the new items that we'd be able to pack in their lunches. 

Previously we had been buying small, individual sized yogurt containers. When we got to the section the girls asked if they could get their usual, Yoplait Key Lime... The answer was no. I told them about the extra packaging waste, extra cost and how, now that they have a Goodbyn, we can make our own flavors of yogurt. We can add honey, blueberries, strawberries... They quickly got it and chose a large container of vanilla. Of course, because they are so close to this project they are already aware of the benefits of the Goodbyn but I noticed how much they were learning while deciding what choices were the right ones...

I swear I didn't put her up to this, just took the picture. Like I said, the girls have been living this idea for a while now. They get it. Your kids will too. I think it's great. 

When we got to the cheese section we talked about how we don't really need to buy cheese-sticks anymore. The weird thing is that most of the time the cheese-sticks came home unwrapped, warm and gross anyways. So I suggested maybe we should buy a larger, single package of cheese that we could cut up and send with crackers or on a sandwich too. And maybe, it'll get eaten from now on instead of ending up in the trash?! 

"Mom, can we take hot dogs in our lunch???" Hmm, probably not the smartest food choice, but what the heck, why not once, for the inaugural lunch?

This shopping experience was really fun. The girls were very much engaged in making the choices would be the smartest and most environmental. They were walking around looking at things we would previously buy and saying, "oooh, too much packaging..." and I would ask them what our other options could be. They totally get it and were proud to be a part of the good-decision-making process. 

I have to say that we did buy drink boxes. The bottle is still being finessed over the next week so we don't yet have one for the girls' Goodbyns. We designed the Goodbyn with the busy consumer in mind. While it has a drink bottle, we realized that sometimes you just might not want to use the drink bottle...who knows, but the section for the drink bottle also fits most standard drink boxes. We went with Juicy Juice this week. Hopefully one of the last times I'll have to buy these...

Another post coming on the decorating process...

-Erin

Comments

[Tina @ Squirrel Acorns]

I just read about your new lunch boxes over on a thread at Mothering. They look very cool! I will have to show them to my boys tomorrow and see what they think. I love your pictures of your girls at the grocery store making thoughtful choices.

[joy]

I'm excited to consider a 'new' lunch box for my new school-goer! Please- I can't find see the size of the box listed anywhere. I want to make sure I have room for it.

[Sarah]

Is there a way to keep teh contents cold? Our kids don't have a fridge to keep their lunch boxes in so we need something with a cooler pack so things don't spoil. Hope to hear you have addressed this issue. Thanks

[Rob]

Joy, you can find the size listed in our FAQs on the website: 13 x 8.5 x 3.2 inches. It's about the size of a piece of paper, but the depth is thinner than most lunchboxes, and slides easily into backpacks, cubby holes, etc.!

[Rob]

Sarah, the Goodbyn doesn't immediately come with cold packs. We're currently developing some that are customized for the Goodbyn, but in the meantime, most third-party ice packs fit into the larger compartments.