Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals for camping or hiking

Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals

Name: Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals
Brand: Wayfayrer

The Wayfayrer meals are pre-cooked in a bag that you can reheat by boiling in the bag.

Review Score

Our Score: 8.7/10

We've given the Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals the Thumbs Up award.

Value for MoneyQualityPracticality

The good

An easy way for you (or your child) to cook a meal.
The ones we tried tasted great.

The not so good

Can get expensive if buying many meals.
If boiling in water, bring a pot large enough.

This was a hands-on product review. The product was supplied to us to test and conduct the review.

Price Guide

Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals has a recommended retail price of £5.94.

The best price we've found so far is £3.99. That's £1.95 off the RRP of £5.94.

Amazon

£4.9910/03/2024

Camping International

Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals Videos

Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals Photos

Our Review

We've tried a few different 'meal-in-a-bag' makes over the years, but surprisingly, not tried the popular Vango Wayfayrer meals yet.

Fortunately, Vango sent us a few over to try for our recent backpacking adventure, so here's what we thought of them.

Wayfayrer Meal Review

Vango makes a range of Wayfayrer food covering Breakfast, Main Meals, and Desserts. You can click here to see the full range on the Vango website.

We tried a Vegetable Chilli and a Chocolate Steam Pudding.

Cooking the Meals

Cooking the Wayfayrer Food — Heating the Wayfayrer meals on the camping stove.

The instructions say to simply leave in a pan of boiling water for 7-8 minutes. It's that simple.

Wayfayrer Instructions — Instructions for Wayfayrer Meal

We had backpacked to the campsite, and so we hadn't brought a lot of cooking gear with us. In theory, this shouldn't be a problem, as using the Wayfayrer food means you don't need to do much cooking. However, the pouches are quite large for a small pot you might take backpacking, so make sure you have a pot big enough.

Alternatively, you can empty the contents into the pan, and heat it directly.

BTW, if you are backpacking, each pouch weighs about 300g

Eating the Wayfayrer Food

As their slogan says 'Real Food', but with a shelf-life of 3 years, and it sealed in a bag, you might think it isn't going to taste that real.

Wayfayrer Chocloate Pudding — Inside the Chocolate Pudding Packet

Our lad, when first looking into the cooked Chocolate Pudding, said it looked like cat food! Not the best endorsement but after taking his first bite, it was soon devoured.

Yes, it did taste like 'real food'. Perhaps not quite as good as a fresh meal, but not bad at all considering all you had to do was re-heat a bag in water.

You can, of course, save on bringing plates and just eat out of the packet. A long-handled spoon is ideal if you do this. However, I preferred to empty mine into my mess tin and it out of that.

Use a long handled sppon — If you are eating out of the packet, it's best to use a long-handled spoon. Otherwise, you can get quite messy, especially with chocolate pudding!

Verdict

We were pleased with the Wayfayrer meals. The ones we tried were good.

You pay for the effort already put into the meals, so if you buy many of these, the price can soon increase. They typically cost £4.50 to £5, however you can get them cheaper if you shop around. Of course, you are paying for the convenience of having a good meal without needing to do any cooking. And if you eat out the packet, with very little washing up too! :-)

The Wayfayrer meals are also approved by the Scouts Association and Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, so if your child is off on a camp or expedition for a few days, these are something simple they can cook and still get some meals. Some retailers sell them in bundles for D of E expeditions, which can save you some money (see our price search below).

For example, on the Wayfayrer vegetable chilli, the nutritional information published (per 100g) says Energy: 510kj/122kcal. Protein: 9.0g. Carbohydrate: 9.9g. Fat: 3.9g. So, a well-balanced meal. The ingredients list didn't read like a chemistry experiment either, so that's good too.

We're happy to give these the Thumbs Up Award.

Details

Attribute	Wayfayrer 'Ready' Meals
RRP	£5.94
Best Price	£3.99
Product Info	Brand Web Page