Packing a lunch

Dairylea Strip Cheese 8/10
Price: £1.74 for 8 x 21g (approx 22p each)
Nutrition: 15% RDA calcium
Results: The familiar flavour of Dairylea cheese squares or triangles in another format. The children liked the processed taste, although these had the least calcium content of any other cheese product tested.

Cheestrings 7/10
Price: £2.42 for 12 x 21g (approx 20p each)
Nutrition: 16% RDA calcium
Results: Hugely popular with the panellists but parents thought them rubbery and worried that they bore little resemblance to real cheese. However, parents whose children objected to eating cheese thought these peelable sticks might be a way of introducing it to the lunchbox. One parent found they could be added to the lunchbox frozen, and therefore be cool when eaten at lunchtime. Also available in packs of Double Cheddar Twisters and four-flavour Minis.

St Ivel Cheese Mates 4/10
Price: 98p for 5 x 20g (approx 19p each)
Nutrition: 19% RDA calcium
Results: Essentially just cheddar in plastic. Enlisting Sesame Street characters to encourage consumption – one for each day of the school week – failed to convince our lunch party that it liked the stronger flavour.

Cheestix 3/10
Price: £1.19 for 4 x 25g (approx 30p each)
Nutrition: 23% RDA calcium
Results: A cheesier taste and high calcium content, but the children found them hard to open and again weren’t keen on the stronger flavour.