Free Kraft Food & Family Magazine Now Online

Kraft Food and Family has always been one of my favorite online freebies. It's a glossy magazine from the Kraft Kitchens sent out quarterly. It's not a barbecue magazine, but they do include some great grill recipes in the summer issues.

When I first signed up for Kraft Food & Family, I thought it would be a booklet or something. But, it turned out to be a real magazine and packed with lots of ideas, directions, tips, and recipes. I really looked forward to getting the free cooking magazine.

My new issue of Food & Family came in this week, and it includes an "important notice" on the side flap. The next issue will be an online edition. They included a coupon code and promised $5 in Kraft coupons to go to the online form and sign up for the online magazine. Well, actually you don't get to the magazine. You get signed up for the weekly emails and then notification when the online magazine is actually ready.

I must confess I was bummed. I'm just not as likely to sit down and read a magazine or check out recipes in an online magazine format. It's kind of like those e-cards. They just don't feel real like the ones someone takes the time to buy, write on, and stick in the mail with an actual stamp. Sure. I enjoy e-cards that folks send, but it really is not the same as getting a card I can hold in my hands. Same thing with a magazine. It's not really a magazine, in my mind, when it's online.

The economy is bad, and printing is expensive. I noticed that Christian Science Monitor is going to the online format as well. Whew. What a week. Print is looking pretty shaky these days.

I generally roll with the flow. I clicked over to the Kraft online form. I put in my coupon code and my zip code as requested. No dice. It didn't work. I changed the zeros to regular old letter O's in case I was reading them as numbers instead of letters. There were two of those, so I tried each on separate and both together. That didn't work. I checked the zip code. We don't use the extra four around here, but I looked at my label and then tried zip plus dash plus four as on my label. Nope. That didn't do it either.

There is a click to sign up as a new member at Kraft on the home page of Kraft. I suppose I could do that. I don't know if I'd get the $5 in coupons if I went that route. I'm also not sure I'd even read the online magazine. So, it's kind of annoying that I spent time to do the shift as they requested (and then we on a weekly email list to boot) and then the form did not work. This is not Mom and Pop down the road. It's a major food company. They should have the form right before sending bad news about the Kraft magazine being cancelled and then asking for subscribers to stay loyal with this change of format to online.

I don't know if the new online magazine is available yet, because I can't even get signed up. The print magazine says that I'll get a "sneak peek." I guess I won't if I can't sign up.