‘I paid £15 for a Morrisons family picnic box

With summer weather finally upon us, and school summer holidays in full swing, it’s the perfect chance to get out and enjoy a family picnic either on holiday, in a local park or just in your back garden. But if the thought of preparing a picnic feast is not such an appetizing prospect, then supermarket giant Morrisons has launched its own fully prepared picnic hamper just in the nick of time.

Available at Morrisons Cafes, the family picnic box costs £20, or just £15 if you have a Morrisons More loyalty card. It includes a hefty line-up of treats for your money – you get to choose from an array of sandwiches, pastry rolls, sweet treats and drinks, as well as a healthy fruit option too.

Sure, it’s not exactly the poshest of picnic fodder (already having had the king of picnics last month with the £120 Fortnum and Mason version which you can read about here). But for £15, the Morrisons picnic box looked like a brilliant bargain to fill up the family on a sunny day.

READ MORE: Inside the Trafford Centre’s huge summer fairground with beach and splash park

So I went to pick up one of the Morrisons boxes, having recruited my family testers – my eight-year-old and four-year-old children, the grandparents as well as myself. Here’s how we got on.

How does it work?

You simply nip to your nearest participating Morrisons Café and order a picnic box with the assistants at the tillpoint. The boxes are hand packed, and Morrisons say to expect it to be ready for you “within 20 minutes”.

I headed to the Morrisons Café in Crewe, which was fairly busy when I arrived just before lunchtime. There was an assistant already making up a couple of picnic boxes for other families.

I was handed a printed order form to fill in with my selection from the list of options. They then make it up for you while you either wait in the café or go and do the shopping.

I was told that it would be ready within 20 minutes, but the lady did it all fairly speedily and mine was handed to me within 10 minutes.

What are the options?

On the order form, there are sections that you tick off for each item that comes in the box. The choices you need to make are from the options below:-

• 2 x adult sandwiches – choose from egg and cress, smoked ham and cheese, tuna crunch roll, chicken and bacon roll

• 2 x children’s sandwiches – choose from ham or cheese

• A pack of six sausage rolls or cheese and onion rolls

• Crisps – choose from a six-pack of Walkers Variety or a 125g bag of Morrisons’ The Best Cooked Sea Salted Crisps

• Sweet treat – choose from a pack of five strawberry donuts, a pack of five milk chocolate chunk cookies, or five custard donuts

• Fruit pack – choose from a seven-pack of sweet easy peel oranges, a five-pack of bananas, or a six-pack of apples

• 2 x adult drinks – choose from spring water, 7UP, Pepsi Max, Oasis Citrus, or Fanta Zero

• 2 x children’s drinks – choose from spring water, or orange or apple and blackcurrant Fruit Burst

What was in our box

I was excited to get the picnic box back to my son George, who was waiting to have a picnic at his grandparents’ house. We set up a picnic blanket and he was excited to see everything inside.

We particularly liked the colorful design of the box, created to look like a retro picnic wicker hamper with a gingham sheet.

For our picnic selection I chose a smoked ham and cheese sandwich on wholegrain bread and a chicken and bacon roll for the adults – which we decided to share between three of us. For the kids’ options we went for one of each of the ham and cheese sandwich, but as both of my boys are picky eaters I didn’t hold out too much hope of them giving them a try to be honest.

I asked for the six pack of sausage rolls, opted for the six pack of Walkers crisps (as these are always handy to have in the house if we didn’t get around to eating them at the picnic), and the pack of five chocolate chunk cookies for a dessert.

We also went for the 6 apple selection, although I was surprised how big the apples were, which seemed very good value for the money.

The only slight error on our order was a mix up with the drinks – I had ticked the box for an Oasis drink, Spring Water and two Fruit Bursts for the kids – but what they sent was two bottles of Pepsi Max, a bottle of sparkling water and only one Fruit Burst orange drink.

How did it all taste?

For the bargainous price of £15 (working out at £3.75 per person if you’re feeding four), I was not holding out too much hope of dazzling quality items to be honest. But how wrong I could be.

The adults all agreed that the sandwiches were really tasty, and I particularly liked the chicken and bacon baguette. I encouraged my son to give the children’s ham sandwich a try, and at first he was not keen to even give it a bite.

But after he took a taste, he surprised himself (and us) by really liking it. I was even more surprised when he asked for the other half and wolfed that down.

The sausage rolls were also an excellent picnic proposition, the pastry was not too flaky so you weren’t getting pastry everywhere on the blanket, and the sausage inside had just enough of a spice hit.

The cookies were also a triumph – eagerly scooped up by the adults and the kids with the perfect mix of chewiness and a slight crunch, with lots of chocolate chunks in them too.

The verdict

Well, it was a massive thumbs up from us for the picnic box – particularly from my son George. I can’t believe he wolfed down the ham sandwich when he’s usually such a picky eater and he loved the cookies too.

And what a massive bargain it turned out to be. Morrisons say the individual items would cost up to £26.44 if purchased in store, so if you’re buying it with your More card for £15 you’re making a whopping £11 saving.

Even better, I then spotted on the side of the picnic box there is a £5 voucher printed on which you can use again at the Morrisons Café as well, which is even more than we bargained for.

And, as we found, there’s more than enough food here to be spread across a few days. For example, there were apples left which we saved to eat on other days, we shared the fizzy drinks, and there were loads of sausage rolls that we planned to cook up again with chips and beans to make another meal.

Kids will also love the novelty value of the box, and the excitement of poking inside it to see what it’s filled with. And it actually felt nice to just be able to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine while tucking into some treats without breaking the bank to do it.