Your Igloo cooler is an insulated container, and as such, it is an efficient insulator for both heat and cold. Fill your Igloo cooler with large cubes that are frozen solid – avoid crushed or dripping ice. Use of large ice blocks (or large frozen bottles of water) will help prolong ice retention.

Take your own advice and put your lunch in the refrigerator or freezer as soon as you arrive at work. Always include a frozen icepack (even in an insulated lunch box) to keep perishable foods cold until lunchtime. You can also freeze an individual juice box to serve as an ice pack.

Put your cooler bag in the fridge or freezer before you pack it. The colder it is, the longer it will be able to keep ice frozen and your food chilled. You don’t want to add anything to your cool bag that will warm it up. So keep heated food elsewhere and avoid packing room temperature food items.

Here are the top lunch box coolers to keep meals cold at work or school.

• Best Overall. PackIt Freezable Deluxe Large Lunch Bag.
• Best Bang For The Buck. Coleman 9-Can Soft Cooler with Removable Liner.
• Best Bento Box. Healthy Packers Bento Box.
• Best Large Capacity. MIER Insulated Lunch Bag.
• Best For Kids.

Crushed ice cools food and drinks faster but ice blocks last longer and are better suited to keeping coolers cold. Making your own ice containers for the cooler is a great way to keep food cold without spending too much on crushed ice. One solution: Pre-freeze drinking water in clean milk jugs or two-liter pop bottles.

The neoprene construction helps keeps food cold (or warm) for up to 4 hours, depending on the content and outside temperature; the cooler the contents the longer they will stay cold.

Yeti’s new cooler is the lunch bag you never knew you needed — here’s why it’s worth $80. I’d consider this cooler a practical expense for most people who take their lunch to work or stroll out with a six-pack from time to time, but it also holds up for long days on a boat in the beating sun.

Absolutely. The Hopper’s strengths lie in its durability, packability, and portability. I can confidently say that it’s superior to any soft-sided cooler on the market when it comes to these three traits. And when it comes to packability and portability, it also has hard-shell coolers beat.

RTIC

John and Jim Jacobsen began their company in 2015 in Cypress, Texas, intending to make similar products to YETI but at a cheaper price. Because it sells almost exclusively direct to consumer, RTIC can sell its products at a much lower price while still turning a profit.

But no, RTIC and Yeti are not the same company, they are owned by completely different companies and Yeti successfully sued RTIC in 2017 for patent as well as trademark infringements.

Like other major competitors, RTIC products are made in China in order to provide the best quality at the lowest price to you, the consumer.

No, zero RTIC coolers are made in the USA. They have a few fulfillment centers in the U.S., but pretty much all of their coolers are made in China, which they are not shy about – they say it front and center on their FAQ page.

The Pelican ProGear Elite cooler is my #1 pick for the best cooler that is like Yeti but cheaper. It’s one of the most affordable of all the Yeti alternatives and it outperforms the Yeti in terms of ice retention.