Public Goods Organic Food Roundup Review 2020 | Organic, Limited Ingredient Pantry Items
The Top Line:
We like ingredients we can pronounce - and Pubic Goods does a great job in making sure their products have only simple, organic ingredients. We love some of their products, but unfortunately many miss the mark.
We will continue to add items onto this list as we give them a taste and check the damage on your wallet.
Originally published on 26th May 2020. Updated 14th June to include Veggie Chips and Canned Beans.
Note: we did a FULL Public Goods Roundup Review here!
The Products
The Good Ones (Add to your Cart):
✔ Whole Bean or Ground Coffee $6.50 for 12oz
✔ Spicy Sesame Oil Ramen Noodles $7.00 for 5 pouches
✔ Blueberry Jam $4.00 for 12oz (Review here)
The Bad Ones (Skip the Cart):
✗ Tomato Soup $9.75 for 3 pouches
✗ Organic Peanut Butter $4.75 for 12oz (Review here)
✗ Pesto Sauce $4.25 for 6.35oz
✗ Seven Grain & Lentil $4.50 for 1 pouch
✗ Veggie Chips $3.25 for 5oz bag
✗ Pinto, Kidney, and Black Beans $1.75 for each 15.5oz can
The Experience
Purchasing & Shipping: The website is cleanly designed and ordering is a straightforward. The free shipping threshold seems a little on the high side at a minimum of $45. That said, we know why they do it — bigger orders mean fewer shipments which mean lower emissions.
Good to Know: The Public Goods blog is kind of awesome. They even post recipes using their ingredients, like this one with the ramen. Or this one about Roasting Coffee.
Coupons: $10 off your first order with ‘BLOG10’
The Details
Coffee ✔
Cost & Products: Both Whole Bean or Ground $6.50 for 12oz
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Organic, Fair-trade (♥), non-GMO
Packaging: Bag… Non-recyclable. It’s hard to recycle coffee bags because they need to retain the freshness of the beans and thus usually are lined with a plastic.
Taste Report
Context: We drink a lot of coffee, so we have opinions but we are not connoisseurs.
We really liked this coffee! On par with a typical Peet’s or Allegro coffees.
Good to Know: Only one roast available; beans sourced from Central and South America
Money Report: We will assume you have been an avid coffee drinker at home, making 1 cup per day. That’s 131oz of ground coffee or a little more than 10 bags of coffee per year. Here, we compare both fair trade and non fair trade certified coffees:
Public Goods 12oz $6.50 $71/year
Counter Culture 12oz $15.25 $167/year
Equal Exchange 12oz $7.99 $87/year
Thrive Market 12oz $7.49 $82/year
Peet’s Coffee 12oz $8.98 $98/year
Public Goods is cheapest, unless you’re able to nab some of these other brands on a wicked sale.
Tomato Soup✗
Cost & Products: $9.75 for 3 bags
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Organic and zero preservatives. Ingredients are actually recognizable food products
Packaging: Plastic pouch inside of a cardboard box (recyclable)
Taste Report: It’s fine. Since there is no milk/cheese, tastes more like the tomato sauce kind of soup rather than the Feta Tomato soup at Pret.
Money Report: Maybe you love tomato soup. Here is the cost if you had 10 bowls:
Public Goods Tomato 42oz $6.50 $16/per 10 bowls
Pacific Creamy Tomato 32oz $4.49 $10/per 10 bowls
Amy’s Organic Bisque 14.5oz $2.39 $12/per 10 bowls
Amazon Kitchen Tomato Basil 24oz $6.99 $20/per 10 bowls
Too expensive for not enough interesting flavor. Plus it comes from Lithuania (what?). At this price, we’d prefer the fresh stuff.
Spicy Sesame Oil Ramen Noodles ✔
We reviewed the Ramen Noodles here
It’s one of our favorite Public Goods items and we just wanted to relive the experience of eating the noodles again
Pesto Sauce✗
Cost & Products: $4.25
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Organic and zero preservatives. Ingredients are actually recognizable food products
Packaging: Glass jar - nothing different.
Taste Report: It’s fine. Was it life changing? No. Will we order it again based on taste alone? Maybe. Unclear.
Money Report: We like pesto. Here is the cost if you had 10 meals with pesto:
Public Goods Pesto 6.35oz $4.25 $14/per 10 meals
Barilla Traditional Pesto 6.3oz $2.99 $10/per 10 meals
Rao’s Homemade Pesto 6.7oz $5.39 $17/per 10 meals
Buitoni Basil Pesto 7.0z $4.49 $14/per 10 meals
Same as the soup — too expensive for not enough interesting flavor.
Seven Grain & Lentil✗
Cost & Products: $4.50 for 1 serving
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Organic and zero preservatives. Ingredients are actually recognizable food products
Packaging: Plastic pouch….
Taste Report: We made breakfast with it and added mushrooms. Not bad.
Money Report: Here is the cost if you had 10 meals:
Public Goods Seven Grain $4.50 $45/per 10 meals
Seeds of Change Seven Grain $2.99 $30/per 10 meals
Tasty Bite Organic Grains $2.58 $26/per 10 meals
Ancient Harvest Quinoa/Lentil $2.99 $30/per 10 meals
Nope. Nope. Nope.
Veggie Chips✗
Cost & Products: $3.25 for 5 oz.
How ‘Clean’ Is This? No preservatives, trans fat, GMOs. It is kosher. BUT, they use a sustainable palm oil.
Packaging: Chip bag. The usual.
Taste Report: Love them. Super tasty. Very similar to Terra chips.
Money Report: Here is the cost if you had 10 servings per year (1oz each):
Public Goods Veggie Chips $3.25 $6.50/per 10 servings
Terra Original Sea Salt Chips $3.69 $5.43/per 10 servings
Full Circle Root Vegetable $3.19 $6.40/per 10 servings
Nature’s Promise Root Vegetable $2.99 $4.98/per 10 servings
If you area already subscribed to Public Goods, it may be convenient to get them delivered, otherwise, not super compelling based on price.
We ate them pretty quickly … so we don’t have our own photo.
Pinto, Kidney, and Black Beans ✗
Cost & Products: $1.75 for each 15.5oz can
How ‘Clean’ Is This? No preservatives, trans fat, GMOs. Organic ingredients.
Packaging: Aluminum can.
Taste Report: We’ll be honest - we have not yet tasted them, but we typically throw these three beans into a chili - so we probably wouldn’t be able to tell you a difference anyway.
Money Report: Here is the cost if you made chili with 3 cans, 3x per year:
Public Goods Canned Beans $1.75 $15.75 for 3 pots of chili
Goya Organic Canned Beans $1.29 $11.61 for 3 pots of chili
O Organics Canned Beans $1.09 $9.81 for 3 pots of chili
365 Organic Canned Beans $0.99 $8.91 for 3 pots of chili
Ha. Sadly… Public Goods is just insanely expensive here. No.
We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!
