Toys

The 12 Best Sets Of Play Food For Kids

Play food for kids is such a wonderful toy to have at home that can be used in a wide range of ways from younger toddlers to older kids.

At around the age of 2 years old (give or take) toddlers start becoming more and more interested in pretend play and their imaginations come alive.

It is an absolute delight to watch our kiddies seemingly become so grown up all of a sudden by becoming creative and imaginative with many of their toys they have.

My heart melts when I watch my little girl rocking her teddy bear to sleep or even mumbling to herself as she prepares a snack for mummy in her toy kitchen.

play food for kids

Play food for kids can grow with our little ones whilst having many benefits too:

  • Language development: Our toddlers vocabulary can be largely improved by saying the names of each food during the game.
  • Colour sorting: Learning colours and pretend play go hand in hand with each other as toddlers become interested in both of these around the same time.

RELATED: First Color Sorting Activity For Toddlers

  • Food groups: This is an activity for the older kids when they are more confident and aware of the foods. Each food can be placed into the correct food group.
  • Fine motor skills: A lot of the play food sets have the velcro/ magnetic centres so cutting and handling of the food can be improved.

RELATED: Fine Motor Skills Activities For Toddlers

  • Pretend play: Whether that means pretending to go shopping, making food in the kitchen or simply pretending to have a picnic at home, our imaginative little ones love playing these fun games.

Mummy’s, I hope you have been practising your noises for pretending to eat/ chew/ crunch and appreciate all the delicious food that your kids prepare for you with their play food.

It is just as amusing for us too as we hear our children learn these new sounds.

Hopefully they’ll be making all the “mmm” and “yummmm” sounds even making their real meals at lunch and dinner too!

My personal preference for play food is the wooden toys as I find them hard wearing and definitely think that paying the slightly higher price for wooden toys compared to plastic toys is more beneficial.

That been said I have reviewed an even mix of both wooden and plastic play food and your own decision can be made as what will be more suitable at home for you and your munchkin.

Wooden Play Food For Kids

1. Melissa & Doug Food Groups

Such a fab variation of food in this Melissa & Doug set as the name states they show the 4 different food groups.

This play food is not only a great purchase for young toddlers as they get to learn names of various foods but as they grow older they can be used to put them in separate food groups.

The four crates are perfect for keeping the play food tidy and ready for use whilst playing kitchen or shop.

The only downside of this set for me is that they don’t have the velcro/magnetic pieces meaning they can’t be cut. 

2. Carlobro Wooden Play Food Set

I love that some of these fruits and vegetables can be cut into not only two but three pieces using the knife within the set.

As we all know toddlers especially love to copy what us parents are doing therefore having a pretend peeler in the set is a really cool idea.

The magnetic pieces are a great idea as they are reasonably easy for our kids to cut them up, yet put them back together with any frustrations.

A big recommendation from me for this play food for kids. 

3. Toy Life Wooden Kitchen Set

Although this isn’t strictly just play food for kids I HAD to add this to my favourites list.

It has so much versatility and can be used in so many different ways during play. T

he mini kitchen serves as a puzzle first of all then can be changed into the perfect little set up ready to wash the food and prepare for cooking.

The kitchen utensils are lots of fun as our kiddies practise their flipping and turning of the food in the pan whilst adding a touch of salt and pepper. 

4. Victostar Wooden Fruit & Vegetable Basket

The basket has to be one of my favourite parts about this set as my little girl adores picking up her shopping basket and walking round the house.

You will soon discover that there won’t be just play food in the basket but all kinds of random accessories picked up from the tour of the house. 

5. Dinhon Wooden Food Cutting Set

How can the box not be mentioned first?!

When purchasing this set, it is the first thing that you come across.

I think it is a creative, fun idea for our children to post the food through the appropriate holes in the top of the box and another fun activity for them to do.

Another positive point of this set is that there are a larger variety of foods rather than only fruit and vegetables. 

6. Hape Homemade Wooden Pizza Play Set

A pizza in our collection of play food was a must in our family with my little girl being half italian.

Despite the italian roots I think pizza is a big hit in most households and my toddler loves playing making mummy a pizza and cutting the slices ready to eat.

This set is a lovely idea for putting all the individual ingredients on to the pizza and allowing our kids to decide for themselves and build their creativity. 

Plastic Play Food For Kids

7. KidKraft Pretend Play Food Set

There are such a wide variety of food choices in this set which is ideal for improving our young kiddies languages skills whilst playing.

It will be amazing to see how many new words they are able to say in such a short space of time. 

8. PeaInBox Cutting Pretend Play Food

A great opportunity in this set for our kids to not only practise their cutting skills but they can also peel the pea pod and the egg shell- perfect for improving fine motor skills too!

The two knives and two cutting boards in the set allow for mummy to join in with the kitchen fun.

9. Liberty Imports Bag Of Vegetables

Despite this set of play foods being limited to vegetables I thought it was a fantastic idea that they are life sized and in my opinion making them more realistic for playtime.

How long will it take our children to open the fridge door and place them amongst all the other real life veggies that we have stored at home.

Set up a bowl of water for your kids so they can wash their food whilst you are also preparing in the kitchen.

10. Sweet Treats Ice Cream Parlour Play Set

Who doesn’t love ice cream?! Our kids will get just as excited with this set as if it was the real deal of having an ice cream.

This is a really fun set which differs from many of the other play food sets available and our little ice cream makers can learn how to scoop and get creative making a yummy treat.

11. BeeBeeRun Play Food Colour Sorting Set

What a fab idea to combine colour sorting and play food.

The 5 separate food buckets are a really clever idea for collecting all of the same colour pieces of food.

To help our little ones initially you could place one of each coloured fruit/ vegetable into each bucket and allow them to see what colour has been placed inside.

This will encourage them to copy and continue the activity.

Even if we don’t want to play a colour sorting game the buckets are useful for playing with the food and carrying from one place to another on repeat. Sound familiar to anyone?

12. Learning Resources Munch It! Pretend Food

Love the detail of the food in this set and I am particularly drawn to the bowls of cereal, they are so adorable! Bet you never thought you’d hear a bowl of cereal being described as adorable, right?!

A great choice of play food snacks which our little monkeys will recognise straight away and will be wanting to eat them all. 

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