Hit or Miss? My MUJI Dinner Date.

As I roamed the store, my basket getting heavier with bamboo stationery and ‘Green Log Fire’ candles, I was suddenly confronted by a wall of beige which, upon closer inspection, was offering ‘flat pack’ meals such as Ginger Pork Curry and Spinach & Cabbage Miso Soup. You may be ahead of me on this one, since the range was launched in the summer of 2018.

Working with MMR means constant exposure to the superb creative energies of our food and beverage companies. So, to be faced with slimline cardboard boxes giving off a vibe of a cheap paperback, I needed a moment to take it all in.

Was this a 70’s throwback that predated Fray Bentos – or more worrying, was this the future of food?

They say that the proof is in the pudding, but this isn’t strictly true. As I explored in my recent review of new Coke Zero, packaging not only sets up expectations of the subsequent product experience, but it also shapes the way we experience it.

If it’s packaged in beige, it’s going to taste beige.

Putting aside my expectations as best I could, I opened the foil pouch inside the box and served the contents hot with a little rice. The experience – you may be surprised to learn - turned out to be good. Visually, there could have been some actual diversity on the color spectrum – not least to convince me that the fruity flavors were as a result of some kind of fruit and not flavorings. But there was sufficient pork – albeit listed as 'Bacon 24%' on the reverse of pack.

In the post-mortem, the experience felt more suited to a camping trip than dinner time at home. The framing is far too functional – to the extent that it drowns out any hint of ‘food values.’

It’s not unusual to find Miso soup in powder form, so this experience did not feel as compromised as the curry. Nevertheless, the way that this product is configured does nothing to lift it from pure function. There are 4 ‘space age’ pouches containing a variety of dried ingredients, and one simply adds 160ml of boiling water to enliven the mix.

Again, product delivery is good. A nice balance of flavors with some interesting variation of texture. Some of the ingredients are not actually beige.

And so onto the final course and the most anticipated product in the range for me. I have been a fan of dahl ever since I made a trip to the Himalayan region of India ten years ago. I often make my own.

Despite some deficits on texture (a little too runny in my book), taste delivery was again surprisingly good. It has to be said however, that with expectations this low, product performance has a fairly low bar to jump.

Overall, MUJI’s obsession with simplified living really doesn’t work when it comes to food and nutrition. At the very least, they could have switched on some bold, vibrant colors to lift the packaging and the food values therein. No logo packaging might work for some household basics, but this is not the way to woo Generation Z when it comes to diet and lifestyle.