DIY International Snack Box – Delicious Treats from Around the World!
Trying Snacks from Around the World!
Do you love trying snacks from around the world? Is wandering through the aisles of a local convenience store one of your favorite travel activities? If so, try creating a weekly or monthly snack box with your friends or family featuring tasty treats from different countries. This is a fun way to experience unique flavors from around the world, even when actual traveling is not an option!
International snack box subscriptions are usually monthly boxes that come with a variety of packaged treats from a specific destination or region. Fun & delicious, these boxes introduce the recipient to unique flavors and snacks from other countries.
DIY Snack Box Inspiration!
There are plenty of international snack box subscriptions to choose from out there, but I recommend making one yourself instead! Frustrated by cancelled travel plans and missing my friends, I decided to create my own DIY snack box with treats from local stores and vendors. Choose your theme, go snack shopping and let the fun begin!
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Snack Boxes Make Great Holiday or Birthday Gifts!
DIY Snack Box Example from the Middle Seat
2020 will be the first year in a decade that I unable to reunite in person with my friends from college. And, that sucks. Instead we are experimenting with different ways to stay connected. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 a small group of college friends and I have been messaging regularly on the Marco Polo app. One day the topic of unique snacks come up. From there the idea to start my own DIY snack box was born! And what better way to stay connected than by sharing snacks?!
Audience: 6 friend couples/households
Schedule: One box with 11 snacks to be tried 1 per week (pre-numbered). This cadence allows everyone in the group to be trying the same snack on or around the same day each week and comparing our reviews.
Theme: Snacks from communities living in and around my neighborhood. (Mexican, pan-Asian and Indian/Southeast Asian) I went for a mixture of savory & sweet, spicy & non-spicy. My boxes were a combo of chips, gummies and cookies.
Getting Started:
Choose Your Schedule, Theme & Audience
First, decide on the schedule, theme & audience for your DIY snack box. Do you want to focus on snacks from a specific country or region? Are you planning to include sweet and savory options? How many weeks or months worth of snacks should you include? This is your opportunity to get creative! Just because standard subscription boxes come monthly does not mean your DIY snack box has to.
Theme Inspiration! Consider choosing snacks from a place you have been dreaming of visiting or from a favorite vacation destination! In my DIY snack box I included a Korean Choco Pie. My wife & I first tried them while hiking in Busan during our honeymoon as part of TempleStay program. It was fun to share part of this snacking memory with my friends!
(Photo Credit: Sara from Yarn Over Crochet)
Where Do I Find the Snacks?
If you live in an urban center you should have no problem finding snacks from outside the US. But, even if that is not the case, do not worry. Putting together your DIY snack box can be a delicious opportunity to learn more about the different communities of people who live in and around your neighborhood. Visit an independent grocery store or a local shop catering to an immigrant community or a shop specializing in food from a specific country or cultural community nearby. Shop outside your normal shopping routine. Half the fun is shopping for the snacks!
Supporting Local Businesses
Buying the goodies for your snack box is a great way to support local businesses, especially those run by entrepreneurs from immigrant or refugee communities. As part of my box I visited five different stores, including four small businesses I had never shopped at before. Small business owners are often willing to share their favorite snack recommendations, too!
11 Fun & Useful DIY Snack Box Tips
Learn from my mistakes! Here are 11 super useful tips for putting together an awesome DIY snack box the first time.
11 DIY Snack Box Tips
1. Wrap Each Snack to Increase the Surprise Factor
My DIY snack box involved trying a new snack every week, so I decided to wrap each snack individually to increase the level of surprise. Consider using paper sandwich bags or party favor bags instead of wrapping paper. You can quickly pack multiple boxes, and they are easy to number if you are sharing the snacks in a specific order. Choose colored or patterned bags to brighten your snack box! Or, double the DIY and decorate the plain paper bags yourself with stickers, paper punches or washi tape.
2. Use Recycled Wrapping to be Green
Looking for a more eco-friendly option? Re-use mail packing, newspapers or even travel maps to wrap your snacks. I had plenty of small bubble envelopes hanging around from online orders, and these work great as recycled packaging. Plus, they helped protect the chips in the mail!
3. Make Custom Thematic Snack Labels
Consider making printable labels for the snacks! This is an easy, fun way to customize your DIY Snack Box. Design a unique label for each snack or use a simple template that can be updated easily. Canva is a super-simple, free tool to use. You can pay for upgrades, but here are some of my favorite freebies.
Download my pre-made Canva Templates for labels for FREE here.
4. Avoid Heat Sensitive & Heavy Items If You are Mailing the Snack Box
There are so many snack options to choose from, so avoid ones that will risk melting in the mail. (Especially in summer!) Buy snacks in lightweight packaging to cut down on shipping fees. Snacks like these seaweed rolls or cute little bags of fried peas or dal make for inexpensive treats! If you’re delivering the snack box yourself, the sky is the limit! (or, maybe however much you can carry :P)
Check out my favorite packaged snacks from South Korea! From sweet and spicy tteokbokki crisps to milky seltzer, South Korea is one of the most delicious destinations to visit.
5. Identify Little Kid-Friendly Snacks and Snacks That are Good for Sharing
Sending snack boxes to families with young children? It may be helpful to identify little kid-friendly snacks up front. A few of the snacks I shared were too spicy for kids and toddlers who were not used to eating foods with a lot of heat. Each family’s meal and ingredient choices are different. By letting parents know, they can choose whether or not to open a snack when their kids are around. Also, let your recipient know if this week’s snack is good for sharing with a group! A bag of chips or small candies can be shared, but a single cookie may not be so fun to open when others are around.
Special thanks to my friend Sara for her chic snack photography skills! Check out her fiber arts meets science blog at Yarn Over Crochet.
6. Schedule 'Snack Review Time!'
Your DIY Snack Box is all about staying connected with friends and family! Plan a time for everyone to try to the snacks together. Snack Review Time is a highlight of my week that I always look forward to! Our schedules do not always line up, so we share reactions over Marco Polo at any point during the weekend.
- Tie it into a regularly scheduled FaceTime, Duo or Zoom date!
- Can’t get everyone together at the same time? Record yourself trying the snack over SnapChat, TikTok or Marco Polo!
Snack Review Time is a perfect Facetime conversation topic!
7. Make it Educational!
Your snack box can be both delicious and educational!
- Make it a guessing game! Provide a visual or some fun facts about a country to see if your Snack Box recipient can tell where the snack is from! Above is an example using a vacation photo of my wife at The Great Wall.
- Include a Book, Documentary or Podcast Recommendation! I am putting together a snack box for my 6-year-old niece. I will only have 4 snacks, but I am including a children’s book featuring the country where each snack is from so she can learn about other places!
8. What If I Choose an 'Icky' or 'Gross' Snack? Don't Worry!
Snack shopping for other people, especially if you are putting together boxes for a group, can be intimidating. I worried: What if the snacks I am choosing are too spicy? What if I pick flavors my friend doesn’t like? What if these chips taste gross?
Stop, take a moment, and remember that the whole point of an international snack box is to experience new and unique flavors that differ from your everyday snacking experience! Maybe you will discover a new favorite snack that you weren’t expecting. Or, maybe you will try one that you think is absolutely disgusting. And that’s okay! The true fun lies in the shared experience of escaping our everyday routine, just like travel! Not all of my snacks were a hit. But, our group had a great every week!
9. Create a Poll To Track the Winning Snack!
Find out which snack is the group favorite! It is very simple to make a Google Form to track the Snack Box fan favorite! Update the poll weekly, and if your Snack Box recipients log in with their email addresses they can edit responses based on the new snack each week. Provide the group with updates on which is the ultimate snack!
10. Take Recipient Allergies or Dietary Choices into Consideration
If your snack box recipient has any food allergies, intolerances or dietary restrictions, try to take these into account when choosing snacks. For example, one of our friends is lactose intolerant, and I forgot to check if the snacks I sent were made with dairy or not. When I chose these Masala Twistees I did not even think to look at the ingredients, and they are made with milk solids.
11. Use Google Translate Image Function to Read Snack Packaging
Note: I do not recommend using Google Translate if you are worried about or are trying to confirm ingredients and allergies. I cannot confirm that level of translation accuracy.
Was your DIY Snack Box a hit?! Consider Taking Turns with Friends & Family to Keep the Snack Box Experience Going!
- If you’re doing a weekly snack, have each participant buy two or three snacks to send out to the whole group. That way if there are 4 participants there will be 12 weeks of snacks to enjoy! Considering having each person choose 1 country to focus on. Maybe a dream destination or a favorite place they have visited!
- Try rotating the person responsible for the snacks each month. If that person sends out the boxes in the middle of the month before there should be plenty of time.
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Such a fun idea. Everyone loves snacks and this is a great way to share and discover yummy new foods when you can’t travel to other countries.
If i say I LOVE this idea, that would be an understatement. I might start one with U.S. friends so they sample some stuff from my new home in Mexico 🇲🇽
Thank you, Shelley! I bet your friends would love it! If you have any favorite Mexican snacks you recommend, let me know. I included Churromais con limoncito in my first box. They received mix reviews, but were a lot of fun to share. Always looking for new snacks to try myself, too. 🙂
This is such a GREAT idea!! My bff’s daughter would love something like this for Christmas, and I love to get her travel themed gifts (to hopefully instill some wanderlust in her). Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks, Kara! If you end up making her a snack box, let us know how it goes!
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