I am such a lucky lady! You all know how much I love my polka dots so you can easily imagine how pleased I was to receive 3 x fantastic red and white polka dot grocery shopping boxes from Big Fat Bags. I was over the moon!

I found the company when I was googling images of red and white polka dot shopping bags – now you know how truly red and white polka-dot obsessed I am!!! As if you didn’t already know. 🙂 I then approached the company to see if they fancied a review on my blog and I was super excited when they sad yes and gifted me the boxes along with a lovely covering letter.

It is very evident from their letter that the team behind ‘Big Fat Bags‘ are very passionate about their products and their mission to help people reduce the number of plastic bags they have to use and thus help protect the environment. If you read their blog post ‘Plastic Plague‘ you will discover the shocking fact that each year the number of plastic bags made exceeds 1 trillion and each bag will take up to 1000 years to fully decompose!  The Big Fat Bags are made from 100% recyclable materials and they have superior antimicrobial/anti-fungal protection which will last the lifetime of the boxes. You can read more about this here. These grocery boxes will help protect the environment – not destroy it!

Each spotty or striped, medium size, collapsible grocery box costs £7.49 and measures 37cm(w) x 26.5(d) x 28(h).  The other plain designs cost £6.99 each. “Unlike any other bag-for-life. Each ‘bigfatbag’ is a safe, money saving, strong and planet friendly product. Built to last.” – (taken from their website)

I was really eager to start using my grocery boxes on a supermarket shopping trip but I kept using the boxes for jobs around the home so couldn’t take them out with me when I went shopping. I had clean laundry packed in 1 box – ready to carry up the stairs, my daughter had her toys in 1 of the boxes (she absolutely adores the boxes and says they make a great toy box!) and the 3rd box I kept using as a general storage box to put magazines and books etc in. In the end I did finally manage to get organised and get the boxes empty so I could take them with me on a shopping trip!  On their first outing we headed to my Lovely Local Lidl!

The photo at the top of this blog post shows how fab the collapsible boxes really are and you can see from that image that they made my shopping trip so much easier! I only used a mini Lidl trolley on that occasion and as you can see the grocery box is a perfect fit for the mini trolley.

I left the box folded up in the trolley while I did my shopping (although I could have hung it from the hook on the trolley if I’d wanted to).  At one point I did open the box and stand it on that little platform near your feet that some Lidl trolleys have on them. I did this for photo purposes 🙂 However,  If I’d had two shopping boxes with me at the time I could have actually left the box there and loaded it up with my shopping at the checkout.

It was so easy to pack my grocery box at the till. All I did was opened it up and had it stand in the bottom of the trolley so I could easily fill it up with my purchases. Packing the grocery box is as addictive as playing Tetris! You get to stack up the products in the box and then add other little purchases into the gaps until the box is full and you feel as though you have won your game of ‘Fill the Box In The Neatest Way Possible’. 😀  For added measure you can even put a multi-bag of crisps on top of the packed box and it is still easy enough to carry the box from the supermarket to the car! Although personally I would advise leaving the box in the trolley and pushing the trolley to the car…much simpler that way.

The boxes can safely take a lot of shopping. I’m not sure if there is an exact weight limit but it is best to just use your own judgement. The video above demonstrates how you can get 3 bags of shopping into just 1 box! The bags can either be lifted up by the long carry handles or with the riveted short side handles.

I used my bags again today and thought I would take another picture for you all. The photo is below. I don’t know what people must think of me when they see me photographing my groceries. Then again they are probably not looking at me but instead they are admiring my fabulous polka dot shopping boxes!

If you would like to purchase a polka dot Big Fat Bag like mine then you can do so on the following link –>   www.bigfatbags.co.uk/product/vintage-red-medium/

The spotty design is called ‘Vintage Red’.

If polka dots aren’t your thing then, as you can see from the photo above, you could always buy one of the other designs that they sell. There is something suited to everyone.

If you would like to keep up to date with the ‘Big Fat Bags’ news then please follow them on twitter, like them on Facebook or read their blog.

Also please don’t just take my word for these boxes being fab…have a read of all the positive reviews on the Lakeland website . They are a stockist of Big fat Bags and you know straight away that something is worth the money if Lakeland sells it! 😀

The boxes have already come in useful on numerous occasions but because they are such strong, sturdy bags I have every faith they will continue to be used for many more years to come!  I’m so pleased to have found the company and their products and I don’t hesitate at all in recommending the boxes to you!

I would just like to take this opportunity to say a Big Fat Thank You to Big Fat Bags for sending me my wonderful polka dot boxes.

To visit the Big fat Bags website please click here.