Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
Drop Refurbished
Like-new products you can trustDrop Rewards
Get $5 for every 500 points you earn! Learn more
Drop Keyboard Club
Become a member and expand your keycap collectionCollaborate With Us
For Brands & DesignersFollow Drop
The build quality is quite good. There's a main holder of sorts, that holds 4 containers. The idea behind the thermos is that it's more insulated at the bottom than the top, with an insulation layer between the bottom and the top. This is largely with the "large container" (2nd from bottom) where it has a fairly thick piece of styrofoam in the lid. Meaning, that if you have warm/hot food, it should stay warm by the time lunch rolls around, but the top two cups won't be as warm (and the very top is largely unheated). Each container seals quite well, and there's not much, if any leaking. Also since there's an outer shell - even if an individual cup does leak, the likelihood of it getting out of the outer container is minimal.
This setup can hold warm, or cold foods. Personally, I'd recommend only doing warm in this though. A common meal for myself (I work from home a lot now, so maybe not as often) is the following: Lowest Cup - Warm Miso 2nd Lowest Cup - Rice, plain 2nd Highest Cup - Veggies/protein (goes on rice) Highest Cup - Fruit and/or some kinda desert or nuts.
When I was using this every day, I'd prepare my meals in the morning. A rice cooker, set to start before I got up had the rice done by the time I got up. Frozen veggies, left overs, etc would be added to the 3rd highest cup. Miso is very quick to make, I have a hot water warmer I also have ready before I wake up. That, plus some miso, and a bit of microwave = decent miso. So 3 of the cups can be prepared fairly quick. Desert is usually prepared the night before. All of it stored in this, thrown in my backpack with either chopsticks or a fork in the side, and off to work.
It's also worth noting that this is much larger than one may expect. The dimensions should be available, and I'd get out a ruler and measure everything. Reasoning being is that this may or may not fit in your commute bag. There are many other bento-box like setups, some that are cheaper and smaller. The main area this one succeeds at is that it can keep your food quite warm/hot til lunch. If you're aiming for food that's more cold that you can microwave at work, then I'd look toward other solutions. It's not so much that this can't do it, but there are other solutions that include ice packs that you can add to an insulated bag to keep things cold. I have one of these, too, but I don't use it nearly as much as the Zojirushi. Also note that this thing holds a lot of food. Easily enough to have a snack or two in combination with a meal for lunch.
Personally, I really think the Zojirushi is fantastic for my use purposes. I bought mine awhile back, but it doesn't appear the design changed much. If you're into bentos, especially warm Bentos and don't mind carrying a bit extra, this could definitely fit your needs.
The lowest cup is a screw on, and is pretty much resistant toward leaking. The one up from that isn't sealed quite the same way, but still has good sealing. The other two are snap lids, and while are snug, I wouldn't trust stuff like soup in them.
That said, if you're storing stuff other than soups, including heavily seasoned/liquidly things, it should hold. For example, in the top compartment, I can have fruit like strawberries and some liquid and they never leaked so far. I think as long as you have the container upright and aren't crashing in a bus/plane or doing twirls off a high dive with it, that things shouldn't leak.
The lowest compartment/cup is kinda designed specifically for soups though.