Last Updated on February 1, 2023

With having no international travel for over a year, and not having a clue when I might be able to take another trip, I started to look in other places to get my travel fix. I had exhausted my local Asian Cook Shop and the international aisle in Sainsbury’s and discovered a subscription box called Snack Surprise. Once a month you receive a box from a country around the world, filled with sweet and savoury snacks. It was advertised all over my Facebook and Instagram and at the time I subscribed, it all seemed to be legit and above board, so I signed up for 3 months (one box a month for 3 months).

Snack Surprise Review

In these current times, I feel like we all have to be a little more patient. Many industries are struggling and the dreaded ‘pingdemic’ (track and trace), is making it even harder on businesses. I signed up on the 17th June 2021 and I didn’t actually receive my first box until 19th July…over a month later. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and was like ‘no it will turn up eventually, it will’. But like anyone I started to question if I had been scammed!

As mentioned, when I first signed up, there seemed to be pretty good reviews. But then there was a hold up with the dispatch of the May box and then the influx of angry comments appeared over social media and the Snack Surprise Trust Pilot score plummeted. People started saying it was a scam, they hadn’t received boxes for months, but then others were receiving the latest box, so I was getting confused! The experience seems to be OK, as long as you have no reason to contact them, as the customer support does seem fairly non-existent.

Cancel Subscription?

Around this time, the ‘cancel subscription’ button disappeared off the site. When you sign up it said you can cancel at any time from the dashboard, but the button to do so was no where to be seen. I only wanted to sign up for one 3 month block and so I thought I would try and get it cancelled sooner rather than later, to stop the reoccurring payment. People were saying they were having to contact the bank to stop the payment from being taken!

I messaged support asking if they could cancel my next payment and eventually I got a message saying my email had be passed on to the right department and they would be in touch. But they never got in touch. About a week later the button reappeared so as far as I’m aware, my next payment has been stopped and I was also able to delete my card details just to make sure.

Dispatch and Delivery

Another thing that was confusing, was that my dashboard said my box had been shipped on the 28th June by 48hr Royal Mail. So I was expecting it potentially first week of July. Now I can’t say for sure if it was actually dispatched on that day or if it was held up with Royal Mail, but it did finally turn up 3 weeks later. The same happened for box 2. It was dispatched 1st August but I didn’t receive it until the 19th. I don’t mind waiting but when the dashboard says it should arrive in 3-5 business days, it’s not, it’s taking more like 13-15 business days…

Snack Surprise June Box – USA?

My box arrived. HOORAY! It wasn’t a scam! However, the May box was the USA, June was suppose to be New Zealand and yet in the middle of July I received the USA box. I was relieved that I had received SOMETHING. But I was a little bit annoyed, because as you may be able to tell from the name of my blog, I lived in the USA for 4 years. I had tried many of the different snacks they have in the US, I wasn’t a particular fan of US snacks and ‘candy’, but they obviously weren’t to know that. If I knew I was going to receive the US, I probably would have delayed signing up for another month.

There are a couple of subscription choices which determine on the price of the box. They offer 3 sizes: Mini, Original and Premium. You can then choose the subscription length: 1 month, 3 months or 12 months. I opted for the Original size for 3 months. This cost £40 upfront which equalled around £13.50 per box. The Original box has 10+ full-sized snacks including a drink and the Premium has 20+ items.

I didn’t think it was too badly priced, the box was completely full. It comes with a handy leaflet which tells you facts about the country, the different items in the box (handy if they are in a different language) and then a word search/puzzle on the back page. It does also show you would was included in all the different box sizes. I liked the way that there was a way to ‘rate’ each item ‘for your own records’!

Snack Surprise Original Box

I received a total of 14 items: 1 can of drink (A&W Root Beer), 4 savoury items (Cheetos, Ruffles, Cheese-It and Combos Stuffed Snacks) and 9 sweet items (Jolly Rancher Gummies, Oatmeal Creme Pie, Fudge Brownie M&Ms, Nutter Butter, Pop Tart Bites, 3 x mini Musketeer bars and 1 x Tootsie Roll Pop).

The 4 savoury items I gave away to my family, because I don’t actually like them. I knew I was taking the risk of getting savoury snacks when I signed up. I liked the Jolly Rancher Gummies, Nutter Butter, M&Ms and the confetti cake Pop Tart Bites.

If I hadn’t have lived in the US, I would have been pretty excited, but having tried the majority of what was in the box (and not particularly missing any of the items), I knew what to expect. Some of the Trust Pilot reviews complained about items being crushed into crumbs, items being out of date or the drinks exploding. I didn’t have any of these problems. My items weren’t crushed, my drink can was intact and the best before dates were mostly 2022 expiries.

Yes, Snack Surprise should make sure things are ‘safely packed’ (which I didn’t think it was too bad, the box is quite thick and made of strong cardboard), but I don’t think they can be blamed if the post man decided to drop kick the box across the warehouse.

July Box – Germany

Well I completely skipped New Zealand and my 2nd box was Germany, which I really enjoyed! I loved the Haribo sour volcanos. I’m now sad that I can’t get more of them. Several of the items were chocolate hazelnut based, a combination that I like, so was fine with having multiple similar products. The only ‘dud’ was a cold pizza pocket thing that I donated to my sister and she couldn’t even finish it! She ended up throwing it away because she didn’t like it!

It was definitely more of a surprising box compared to the USA box, simply because I didn’t recognise any of the snacks. I know I already like Haribos but had never had the volcanos and there was a Pick Up chocolate bar but I’d not had the flavour that was sent!

My 3rd box was Turkey and that was good too!

Snack Surprise New Name

Snack Surprise has now rebranded to SnackVerse. I haven’t used them since their new name change. I don’t know if this was done to shake off the bad reputation that Snack Surprise had got. I still keep being bombarded with emails with discounted sign bonuses, but I’m not going to lie, I’m a little hesitant incase I struggle to cancel the subscription again!

What are your experiences of Snack Surprise?

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