What is the Best Soft Lunch Cooler?

Last Updated by Brandon F. on December 3, 2021

When people typically think of coolers they think of large plastic coolers that are intended to hold large amounts of ice and items.  However, likely the most commonly used application for coolers is for personal use to pack daily lunches.  Sure, these soft lunch coolers don’t fit the usual mold of a cooler.  They aren’t large, plastic, and they don’t hold a ton of items but they are coolers nonetheless!  So what are the best soft lunch coolers?  While these products won’t have the multi-day ice life of their larger counterparts, they can still have pretty significant variance in performance. 

This includes ice life, durability, convenience, and the huge range of features that they come with.  When analyzing soft lunch coolers you have to look at them slightly differently than you would a normal full-sized cooler.  Keeping an item chilled for 2 days might not be a big priority, but a comfortable handle and easy storage ability might be.

So what makes a soft lunch cooler good or bad?  Before we break down the individual metrics and how they are catered to lunch coolers we have listed our top choices for convenience in the table below.  This table will list out some of the most important metrics of the top soft lunch coolers.  And below the table, you can read more about what to look for in a soft lunch cooler and a more thorough review of our top choices.

Best Soft Lunch Coolers

	Igloo Marine Ultra Soft Cooler Bag	Ao Carbon	Coleman Soft
Our Rating
Price by Volume (Amazon)	$$$$	$$$$$	$$$
Ice Life	36-48 hours	12-24 hours	6-10 hours
Our Full Review	Link	Link	Link

Also, if you are looking for a more general soft cooler that isn’t necessarily intended for lunches, check out our article on the Best Soft Coolers.  Many of these choices will be soft coolers that are larger and more expensive than a traditional soft lunch cooler.

What to Look for in a Soft Lunch Cooler

Ice Life

As mentioned above, having an extremely long ice life isn’t a huge priority.  However, you still want a product that will keep your items cold until lunchtime or whenever you typically eat.  This not only includes sitting on your office desk but also in more demanding environments such as construction sites where it may be very hot and offer little protection from the sun. 

Because of this, it is important to find a lunch cooler that can perform well in all environments.  When talking about specific amounts of ice time, we have found that 12-hour ice life is typically plenty but there will be some variance depending on your particular environment and how often you access contents inside the soft lunch cooler.

Portability

Since you will be transporting a lunch cooler to and from work daily, it must be very portable.  Many people will have to fit their lunch cooler into a restricted space such as a cabinet or locker, so having a cooler that is easily stored is a huge pro.  It is also good because you don’t have to worry about carrying around a huge, heavy cooler to and from work every day.

For people whose jobs find them on different sites each day, having a soft cooler that can be easily moved from place to place is additionally helpful.

Storage Size

Sure, a soft lunch cooler doesn’t need a huge amount of storage space but it still needs to have enough for your food, drinks, and any necessary ice or ice packs you have.  

Also, since size and bulkiness are much more important with lunch coolers, having adequate storage space while still being easy to transport becomes a bigger issue.  This is typically accomplished through efficient insulation and quality construction that allows for adequate storage space without resulting in a large and bulky product.  

You will find that many soft lunch coolers are very clever in how they incorporate various storage pockets and areas into their products.  Many people will be amazed at just how much stuff they can store in some of these!  In regards to specific storage sizes, we have found that 20 quarts or less are usually an adequate amount for an individual’s lunch needs.

Durability

When considering durability for soft lunch coolers, we have to approach it differently than we would a normal plastic cooler.  Most lunch coolers aren’t going to be able to handle extreme environments like some of the premium hard plastic or metal coolers, and it would be overkill for them to be. 

However, since it will be much more mobile than a normal large cooler it does have unique areas that need to be up to the task.  These include the handles, zippers, and Velcro areas since they will be used often.  That being said, it still is important that proper manufacturing processes and high-quality materials are used to help avoid any potential cuts or scrapes that could occur on the fabric.

Various Accessories

Side pockets and external storage areas are very important on soft lunch coolers.  Many people want to be able to store all of their items in the lunch cooler, not just food-related.  That’s why many lunch coolers and totes have been designed to resemble conventional backpacks or totes.  They offer plenty of storage areas (often non-insulated) for your other items. 

Whether or not this is important to you will vary from person to person but it is something that needs to be considered.  You will also see a lot of comfort-related features on soft lunch coolers such as padded shoulder straps and easy-grip handles.  This is because the design intent is that you will be carrying these products around a lot, so having something comfortable is quite important.

Price

The costs associated with these coolers are quite important.  Since these lunch coolers typically are made of lower-quality materials (compared to many premium coolers) and don’t have the extreme requirements and size of many conventional coolers the prices are a bit lower overall.  However, the cost in dollars per storage quart can be quite high since they don’t store nearly as much. 

It is still important to shop around for the best price you can find, however. So now that we have gone over a few considerations that we recommend you consider in your next lunch cooler purchase, let’s go over our favorite choices.  These products do well in most categories and should be good choices for anybody in the market for a new lunch cooler.  Click on any of the links below to go to our more thorough full-page review for each cooler.