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Thermos Lunch Box & Stainless Bento — Which Ones Actually Keep Food Hot

Nine models from 300 ml to 2.8 litres. Three are vacuum insulated and hold six to eight hours; six are stacking tiffin containers with no insulation at all. We label which is which, because selling the second as the first is how a programme generates returns.

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Read this before you specify

Thermos lunch box, bento box, tiffin container — three names, three different jobs

This category confuses buyers more than any other we sell, and the confusion costs money at the destination rather than at the quote. Three distinct things share the name.

Not sure what hour claim to print on the packaging? How long a food thermos actually keeps food hot — and the four things that decide it.

A vacuum lunch box keeps cooked food hot for six to eight hours. Double-wall with the air drawn out, so a meal packed at 7am is still properly hot at 1pm without a microwave. Three of our nine models are built this way — TM-1003, TM-1004 and TM-1007 — and they are the heaviest and most expensive of the range, for exactly the reason you would expect.

A stacking tiffin container keeps food separate, not hot. Six of our models are this: stainless tiers that lock together, sometimes with a plastic outer shell. They are lighter, far cheaper, and they hold portions apart so rice does not sit in sauce all morning. What they do not do is insulate. If your listing implies hot food at lunchtime and the product is one of these, you will get it back.

A food jar cooks. Different product entirely — pour in boiling water and raw rice and residual heat turns it into congee by lunch. Those are on a separate page, and no lunch box on this page can do it.

Every card below states which of the first two it is. If a supplier will not tell you plainly, that itself is the answer.

Vacuum insulated — hot 6 to 8 hours

Three models that actually hold temperature

Lunch boxes with thermos performance, without the second container

These are the true thermos lunch box models — also sold as a thermos bento box or thermo lunch box depending on the market. Vacuum insulated, so hot food is still hot at 1pm. The stacking tiers further down are not, and we do not let them be described that way.

Double-wall vacuum, 304 stainless inner, 1400–2000 ml. These are the ones to specify when the brief says hot food with no microwave at the other end.

TM-1003 1400/1600/2000 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1003 — 1400/1600/2000 ml

Round barrel with three stacking dishes inside and a folding handle. The largest capacities in the range at 1400-2000 ml, and the model a Thai hotel group buys for staff welfare packs.

 TM-1004 1400/1600/2000 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1004 — 1400/1600/2000 ml

The dishes lift out and stack separately, so rice does not sit in sauce for four hours. Built for site and factory canteens where portions get carried a long way before they are eaten.

 TM-1007 1500/2000 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1007 — 1500/2000 ml

Soft-grip handle plus a plastic side box for a dry dish. The most customisable of the three, which is why corporate gifting buyers take this one.
Stacking tiers — separation, not insulation

Six containers built for portions, not heat

No vacuum layer. Lighter, cheaper, and the right answer when the meal gets reheated at the other end or eaten cold. Say so on your packaging and these sell well; imply otherwise and they come back.

TM-1019 650/1250/1900/2550 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1019 — 650/1250/1900/2550 ml

Square body in macaron colours, 650-2550 ml. The square footprint packs into a bag better than a round one, and the colours suit a younger buyer.

 TM-1018 700/1400/2100/2800 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1018 — 700/1400/2100/2800 ml

Round tiers you can stack to whatever depth you need, 700-2800 ml. Four capacities that share one lid, which is what makes it work for market and value retail.

 TM-1002 400/800/1200/1600 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1002 — 400/800/1200/1600 ml

The plain-colour version of the same body, up to 1600 ml. Four capacities, and the one corporate buyers pick when the box has to carry a logo rather than a cartoon.

 TM-1001 400/800/1200 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1001 — 400/800/1200 ml

Two or three tiers with a folding handle, 400-1200 ml. Bright colours aimed at children and students, and the lowest entry price in the range.

 TM-1020 1300/1400 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1020 — 1300/1400 ml

All-plastic with fixed compartments, microwave safe - which none of the stainless models are. Aimed at meal prep and student canteens where reheating matters more than insulation.

 TM-1017 300/500 ml stainless lunch box

TM-1017 — 300/500 ml

Single tier, flip lid, 300-500 ml. No insulation at all - this is a container, and it is priced like one. School canteens and picnic use.
A real programme

What a branded lunch box order actually looks like

TM-1007 vacuum lunch boxes laser-marked for an association annual meeting in Chicago
TM-1007, marked for a US association’s annual meeting

These went to a US association for their 16th annual meeting and reunion in Chicago — crest, event name, city and year, laser-marked onto the stainless body rather than printed.

Why laser rather than print for this job. A conference gift gets taken home and used for years. A printed mark on a coated body will fade; an engraved one is cut into the metal and looks the same in year five as in week one. For anything commemorative — anniversaries, reunions, retirements, employee milestones — engrave it.

What the artwork needs to be. Laser reads as one tone in the colour of the steel, so line art and text work beautifully while gradients and photographs do not. Send vector if you have it; we will tell you honestly if a crest is too fine to hold at the size you want.

Buyer guide

What each kind of buyer needs to settle before ordering stainless lunch boxes

Six kinds of buyer order this range, and each one gets caught by something different. These apply to every model in the range — the model pages then tell you what changes for that particular one.

Importers & wholesalers — What your landed cost actually turns on

Unit price is where buyers negotiate and freight is where the money goes. This model packs the carton count shown in the spec table above, and that number decides how many pieces fit a 20ft container far more than the FOB price does. We quote EXW Yongkang, FOB Ningbo or Shanghai, or DDP door to door — and we will tell you which of the three costs you least given where you are, rather than defaulting to whichever is easiest for us. Export documents (CO, BL, invoice, packing list) are prepared in-house, so there is no second party to chase when your customs broker asks for something at short notice.

Brand owners & private label — Three separate budget lines, not one

Logo decoration sits inside the unit price. A matched Pantone is its own run and starts at 1,000 pieces. Packaging is a third line with its own tooling and proofing round — this model ships in our standard pack, and anything else needs its own lead time. Brands that budget these as one number are the ones that get surprised at quotation. We sign an NDA before you share artwork, and a shape you tool for stays reserved to you.

Retail chains — Getting through the receiving door

Retail-ready means more than a colour box. UPC or EAN printed and scan-tested before the carton is sealed, carton marking to your own packaging manual if you send it, and inner counts that match what your DC expects. A barcode that fails at the till becomes a chargeback, and it is entirely preventable at our end. Ask for the retail packaging spec sheet with your first quote rather than after the sample is approved.

Promotional distributors — Working backwards from the in-hands date

Standard production is 30 days after deposit and artwork approval, plus sea freight — roughly 30-35 days to Europe, 25-30 to the US west coast. Add 7-10 days for a printed pre-production sample before any of that starts. Give us the in-hands date at enquiry rather than after artwork approval: we work backwards from it and tell you the real cut-off for each stage. Late artwork is normal in this business; a date discovered late is not survivable.

Amazon & e-commerce sellers — FBA-ready at the factory, not at a prep centre

FNSKU labels, Prop 65 warnings and suffocation warnings applied here, cartons built to FBA dimension and weight limits, and shipment splits by fulfilment centre if you send us the plan. Doing this at the factory removes a prep-centre handling fee and a week of transit on every restock. The compliance documents your listing may be asked for — FDA, LFGB, EU 1935/2004 — are downloadable now rather than promised later.

End users & institutions — What survives daily institutional washing

Canteens, schools, hotels and site catering wash hard and often. Specify laser engraving rather than print. It costs slightly more up front and removes the complaint entirely.

What buyers tell us went wrong elsewhere

The complaints that bring buyers to us

Lids that leak into a bag. A tiffin tier that seeps rice water into a rucksack gets returned once and the brand never gets a second order. Ask any supplier to demonstrate an inverted seal test with liquid in it.

Tiers that will not come apart. Compartments that lock tight when hot and refuse to separate when cold are a design failure, not a quirk. Ours release the same whether the contents were hot or not.

Handles that snap under load. A full 2-litre stainless container is heavy. A thin folding handle fails exactly when it is loaded, and it takes the meal with it.

Inner walls that are not 304. Lower grades rust at the seams and hold odours, and in a food container that transfers to whatever goes in next. Ours is 304 throughout, stated on the invoice.

Coating that chips off the outer shell. On the plastic-shell models the paint is what customers see first, and cheap spray scratches through within weeks.

In the range

What these actually look like

Three models from this range, photographed as they ship. Every one takes your logo from 500 pieces.

TM-1003 - 1400 ml / 1600 ml / 2000 ml
TM-1003 — 1400 ml / 1600 ml / 2000 ml
TM-1007 - 1500 ml / 2000 ml
TM-1007 — 1500 ml / 2000 ml
TM-1019 - 650 ml / 1250 ml / 1900 ml / 2550 ml
TM-1019 — 650 ml / 1250 ml / 1900 ml / 2550 ml

From inquiry to delivery

Five steps, and you know where the order is at each one. Most thermos lunch boxes programmes run this exact path.

Inquiry

Tell us the model, quantity, logo and packaging — or send the brief and we will name the model.

Quote & artwork

Quote within 24 hours, with your logo mock-up and colour match.

Sample

Pre-production sample in 7–10 days for approval before the run starts.

Production

About 30 days after deposit and artwork approval, with in-line QC and 8% batch inspection.

Shipping

EXW Yongkang, FOB Ningbo or Shanghai, or DDP door to door — retail or FBA packing done here.

Ready to quote your lunch box programme?

Send the capacity, logo method, quantity and target in-hands date. We reply with factory-direct pricing and a sample plan, usually within 24 hours.

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FAQ

Lunch box questions

Three: TM-1003, TM-1004 and TM-1007. Those are double-wall vacuum and hold six to eight hours with a full fill. The other six are stacking tiffin containers — they keep portions separate and are considerably lighter and cheaper, but they do not insulate. We put that on the product card rather than leaving you to work it out from a spec sheet, because getting it wrong is what generates returns.

No, and this is the single most important distinction in this part of our range. A vacuum food jar can: pour in boiling water and raw rice, seal it, and residual heat turns it into congee over several hours. A lunch box — even a vacuum one — is built to keep already-cooked food warm. Different geometry, different wall structure, different job. If your customer wants the cooking function, they need a food jar.

Only TM-1020, which is all-plastic with fixed compartments. Every stainless model — vacuum or not — cannot go in a microwave, and that is a property of the steel rather than a shortcut on our side. For meal-prep and student-canteen programmes where reheating is the whole point, TM-1020 is the one to look at.

300–500 ml (TM-1017) for a child or a side dish. 650–1400 ml covers a normal adult meal — most of our volume sits here. 1400–2000 ml (the vacuum models) is a full meal plus sides, aimed at site workers, canteens and anyone eating a long way from a kitchen. 2800 ml (TM-1018 at full stack) is a family or shared portion.

500 pieces per design in stock colours, 1,000 for a matched Pantone. Silk screen handles one to three flat colours, UV digital covers full-colour artwork, and laser engraving on the stainless areas is the only method that survives daily commercial dishwashing. For canteen and institutional programmes, engrave. For retail and gifting, print — and tell the end user to hand wash.

For a hot meal at lunchtime with no microwave, you need one of the vacuum models — TM-1003, TM-1004 or TM-1007 — not a stacking tiffin container, however well made. Capacity is the second decision: 1400–1600 ml covers a normal adult meal with a side, 2000 ml suits site and factory workers eating a long way from a kitchen. If the meal gets reheated at the other end, skip the vacuum entirely and save the weight and the money.

A vacuum one can, with caveats that belong on your packaging rather than in a marketing claim. Six to eight hours is realistic with a full fill and the lid kept closed; a half-filled box or one opened repeatedly will fall short. Our non-vacuum tiffin models cannot do this at all and we label them accordingly — selling a stacking tier as an 8-hour box is the fastest way to generate returns in this category.

Not quite, and the difference decides what you quote. A lunch box with thermos is the two-piece set most buyers picture — a box for the solid food and a separate vacuum flask for soup or a drink. A thermos lunch box is one container with the vacuum built into the walls. We make both. TM-1003, TM-1004 and TM-1007 are the single-piece vacuum models; pair any of the vented boxes with a vacuum food jar and you have the classic set, quoted as one line and packed in one colour box. Tell us which format your end user expects, because the carton plan and the freight cost are different.

The naming varies more than the product does. A thermos lunchbox or thermos bento lunch box for one adult portion is TM-1003 or TM-1007 at 1,400–2,000 ml; a thermos lunch box for adults carrying a full meal takes the 2,000 ml size. A bento thermos box for a child is the 300–500 ml TM-1017. A stainless steel thermos lunch box is what all three vacuum models are — 304 inner throughout. Tell us the portion size and the age group at enquiry and we will name the model rather than sending the whole range.

Get a lunch box quote

Tell us whether the food needs to stay hot or just stay separate — that one answer decides which models we quote.

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