Illustration by Winter Somera

It’s impressive, really, how quickly things went wrong.

Lunchly was just launched Sept. 16, by the internet titans and YouTubers Logan Paul, JJ “KSI” Olatunji, and Jimmy “Mr. Beast” Donaldson, and has been on a downward plunge ever since.

These superstars of content creation have dazzled so many people with their ability to sell cheap merchandise and make millions. They seem to believe that any venture they back will succeed due to their prestige and wealth, but with Lunchly, they’ve flown too close to the sun with child endangerment via moldy products.

But what is exactly going wrong with Lunchly? Has Lunchly already been recalled because of mold? Why is there a bomb threat? It can feel hard to parse. But F Newsmagazine is here for you! Let’s dive in.

So, what the hell is happening with Lunchly?

What Is Lunchly?

Lunchly is a lunch kit snack that emulates classic grab and go lunches, comparable to Lunchables. The goal of Lunchly according to Donaldson is to “disrupt the lunch market for kids with healthier, better-tasting options.” This entrepreneurial trio attests that this endeavor is “something that’s never been done” — even though this is not entirely true. (More on that later.)

Lunchly has three meal options: “The Pizza” (which is how Lunchly officially stylizes it), Turkey Stack ‘Ems, and Fiesta Nachos. All three are compared to and inspired by several meals by Lunchables. The Lunchly website provides nutritional information for all three meals and attest that they are healthier than other lunch kits for kids.

Lunchly has been heavily criticized for many reasons. YouTuber Daniel “DanTDM” Middleton posted on X “[Lunchly] is selling stuff for the sake of making money, simple. How does this benefit their fans?” adding that Lunchly is “selling crap to kids who don’t know better than to trust the people who are selling it to them.”

Middleton’s critique was impactful not only because he is a well-known and well-regarded YouTube creator, but because he is not known for making accusations towards other creators.

Other well known YouTubers, especially within the food and health spheres, critiqued Lunchly not only from an ethical perspective, but also based on health.

Is Lunchly Healthier?

According to health professionals, Lunchly is not a healthier alternative to Lunchables.

While Lunchly and its creators tried to promote the snack as a healthier option (their website directly compares the nutritional values of Lunchly meals with the Lunchable counterpart), this is deceptive. They not only leave out important nutritional values in their quick comparisons (such as saturated fat and sodium), but highlight electrolytes, which are labeled as potassium in the meals themselves.

Lower calories and more protein may be considered healthy for adults, but children need a lot more nutrients than the average adult per meal. Electrolytes are also not an essential or even healthy part of a normal diet. Directly compared with the USDA standard of nutrition for children’s meals, Lunchly falls short. According to the USDA, most children should consume 1,800 to 2200 calories a day. Lunchly’s meal kits range from 230 to 360 calories per meal, which is unreasonably low for any child who consumes 3 meals a day.

Mike Varshavski of the YouTube channel “Dr. Mike” broke it down succinctly in his video on Lunchly, saying that “if a company was truly interested in creating a healthier lunch kit for kids, the USDA standards should be the minimum starting requirements, otherwise they’re simply propagating the problem further.”

Rosanna Pansino, a well-known YouTuber who makes videos on desserts and food, tested the Lunchly kits herself in a video comparing the brand to Lunchables. She notes that the packaging doesn’t have an ingredients list, the tray holding the food is poorly sealed, sauce packages do not have tear lines and require scissors to open, and the cheese in “The Pizza” is moldy due to poor packaging. After testing each product against each other, she concludes that while some of the Lunchly products are of higher quality, both are highly processed snack foods that ultimately do not taste the best, nor are they healthy for children.

“[Lunchly is] just ripping off other brands; they don’t bring anything new and original to the table. Even the flavors they chose are exact rip offs of Lunchables, and what really bothers me is that they have the financial resources to make a truly better for you Lunchable — if they wanted to, they could fully reinvent this and make it good for kids,” Pansino says in her video. “This is like taking a Hostess Donette and just slapping your logo on it and being like, ‘These are great and healthy and better for you […]’, but it’s cherry picking.”

Lunchly isn’t even the first lunch kit to challenge Lunchables. There are many lunch kits already on the market that, while they don’t actively pit themselves against Lunchables, are still on the market as alternatives. Brands like Good Gather, Little Spoon Lunchers, and Taylor Farms all have lunch kits intended to be healthier alternatives to Lunchables.

So while it is true that Lunchly is the first to “disrupt” the lunch kit market by directly announcing a rivalry with Lunchables, they are not the first to create a healthier alternative to Lunchables to promote better nutritional health to kids.

Did Lunchly HQ receive a bomb threat?

According to Logan Paul, the Lunchly headquarters has received a bomb threat which the FBI has identified as coming from someone in London. There has been no other information released on this, other than Paul saying that it’s “crazy” that the caller is from London, “because we don’t even distribute there.”

Is the food in Lunchly moldy and has Lunchly been recalled? 

Yes. There is mold. But it has not been pulled from shelves  — yet.

Rumors online about Lunchly being recalled came from a post that went around on the internet of a sign stating that Lunchly was recalled due to public health concerns and would be pulled from shelves until the FDA deemed it safe to restock. This paired with multiple instances of various Lunchly customers discovering mold in their products, leading some to assume Lunchly was being recalled due to mold.

In reality, the Fred Meyer that the sign was put up in pulled Lunchly off of their shelves because of the nationwide listeria outbreak in precooked products earlier this year, which was affecting grocery stores nationally. The FDA has not yet issued a formal recall of Lunchly products, though it would not be surprising if it did so soon. The Fred Meyer sign was taken down within a day.

The mistakenly placed sign snowballed into a disaster after Logan Paul publicly responded to these assumptions by exposing the employee who put up the sign’s name, face, and store location while also calling him a “dumbass” and a “hater.” This led to the employee losing his job and getting harassed online by fans of Paul.

The employee talks about his experience in an interview with Pansino, how he was taken completely off-guard by the representative Paul had sent to the store, and that he was laid off from Fred Meyer for his own protection. He has been struggling financially due to Paul’s actions. More information about this can be found on Pansino’s channel.

Does Mr. Beast being sued have anything to do with Lunchly?

Jimmy Donaldson is under legal fire due to various events that are, unfortunately, completely unrelated to Lunchly.

What has KSI been doing?

JJ Olutanji has been engaging in a one sided feud with Daniel Middleton ever since his post on X, which Middleton has been ignoring in favor of being present in his life and family.

So what the hell is happening with Lunchly?

Essentially, Lunchly is a company created by three somewhat questionable members of internet fame and all resulting controversies comes from their lack of  emphasis on earning more money and preserving their own pride.