Goodies Co

I'm on my second month as a "founding member" of Goodies Co. I think it's a special Wal-Mart venture, with its own tasting lab which chooses the monthly selection of gourmet, quirky, or regular Joe snacks and food items.

I think I heard about it on Bloomberg TV, where they were talking about Wal-Mart's unusual experiment. So I went to the website and rather than signing up, you submitted your email and waited for an invitation, which I got about a week later.

You receive your items, and a few days later, Goodies emails you to ask if you've enjoyed your selection, and encourages you to submit reviews in exchange for points.

This month (May), I got a full-size Zico coconut water, a packet each of of strawberry and assorted sour straws, a sample size roasted salted pumpkin seeds, 2 sachets of California EVOO, small jar of roasted raspberry chipotle sauce, a Numi Moroccan mint teabag, and a sample bag of nacho cheese flavor Beanitos white bean chips. (The raspberry chipotle sauce was awesome on my toasted cheese sandwich, and I'm keeping it aside for a good steak soon.) There was also a coupon for gourmet guacamole.

It's pretty fun. Last month, there was a choc chip cookie dough bar, a cashew coconut bar, sample of Angie's sweet and salty kettlecorn, a can of Celsius calorie-burning drink, a small bag of Olomomo cinnamon cayenne almonds, and another of sweet potato chips. (The Celsius was surprisingly good, and the Olomomo almonds were delicious, except my dog - coincidentally nicknamed Momo - stole them off the counter when I left to go do something.) Included in this was a $50 gift certificate for a wine website.

Still, overall it's not as impressive a selection of foods as I'd expected. Maybe I need to go even more gourmet? I can't decide whether to stay subscribed or not....and $7 a month is not too bad.....maybe I should cancel my Big Fish Games subscription instead. Looking after a young dog doesn't leave me very much time to play hidden object games!

Speaking of dogs...I have Momo subscribed to a couple of boxes himself. Barkbox and Pawalla, but that's a blog post for another day.