As if there isn’t enough to do in the morning. Preparing a healthy, appetising packed lunch that won’t simply return at the end of the day looking as dishevelled as its owner is a daunting task.
However, help seems to be at hand. Food manufacturers have come to our aid with a range of products that will appeal to the youthful eye and appetite. But should we be feeding our kids such pre-packed foods? And do they have any nutritional value?
Hard to please
To answer these questions, I found a tasting panel of the strictest of judges and critics – my kids and their friends and parents. We looked at a range of dips, tubes, cheese treats and build-your-own snacks all designed for the school lunchbox.
We awarded each product a mark out of ten. Not surprisingly, our primary-age panel was concerned about appearance and novelty value, while parents tempered their children’s enthusiasm with concerns about cost, nutritional value, additives and excessive use of packaging. Both points of view are reflected in the scores.
The conclusion was that these pre-packed lunchtime snacks were not enough to fill a lunchbox. And while they rarely represent good value for money, they’re usually worth the money if they get eaten.
For advice on filling a lunchbox, click here; otherwise read the results of the taste test:
Dip Sticks
Essentially breadsticks with cream cheese (or, in one case, chocolate), these lunch packs were considered fun and interactive by the kids; on the whole, the adults thought they were a bit of a rip off, although acknowledged the useful source of calcium, if little else.
Dairylea Dunkers 9/10
Price: £1.39 for 3 x 50g (approx 46p each)
Nutrition: 23% RDA calcium
Results: ‘This tastes like cheese triangles,’ enthused one dipper, and that familiar flavour proved popular with most panelists. Eight crisp breadsticks accompanied a soft-cheese dip in a pack that was reasonably easy to open. The ratio of cheese to sticks was realistic, although parents should consider supplying a few vegetable crudités (such as carrot, cucumber or celery) to add nutritional value and wipe up any remaining cheese.
The Laughing Cow Cheez Dippers 7/10
Price: £1.25 for 4 x 35g (approx 31p each)
Nutrition: 8.5% RDA calcium; 6% RDA Vitamin A
Results: Smaller in size than the Dairylea Dunkers, with eight sticks and creamy cheese, these were felt to be more suitable for younger children – although most kids found them just about impossible to open. The printed details suggest that a serving should constitute two packs, which parents felt was asking a lot of a child’s attention span – and constituted a greater waste of packaging.
Cadbury’s Dippin Fingers 5/10
Price: 49p for 45g
Nutrition: RDAs not given
Results: ‘I want one!’ These had the panellists up off their seats in under a second, although children were soon warned not to expect them in their lunchboxes. With four small, milk-chocolate fingers to dip into chocolate mousse – which one child hated – most parents felt these were expensive, messy and suitable only as an occasional treat. ‘Give them a Kit Kat or pot of mousse,’ was the consensus.
Kraft Philadelphia Light Snack 4/10
Price: £1.29 for 3 x 50g (43p each)
Nutrition: RDAs not given
Results: ‘Great breadsticks,’ shouted one tester, although the Herb Ciabatta proved unpopular with most young lunchers (the packs also come with Italian Breadsticks or Smoked Bacon Flavour Baguette Sticks). With just six breadsticks, and a salty aftertaste to the cheese, the panel was largely disappointed.
Fruity tubes
Forget the classic pot of yoghurt – only tubes, choobs or frubes will do. To adults, repackaging yoghurt in plastic tubes is a cynical marketing ploy; to kids, it’s a fun and funky new way to serve a boring fruit yoghurt.
Yoplait Petit Filous Frubes 9/10
Price: £1.19 for 9 x 40g (approx 13p each); suitable for home freezing
Nutrition: Made with real fruit purée; no artificial colours or sweeteners
Results: Great value fromage frais that got a big cheer from the children. ‘I’d enjoy Frubes more than a pot of yoghurt,’ agreed one fan. The unusual tubes, which arguably use less packaging than a set of equivalent size yoghurt pots, come in three flavours: peach, strawberry and forest fruits. Some struggled to open them and a splattered sweatshirt and tablecloth resulted. The ‘No spoon, no mess’ promise on the box was contested by parents; Frubes are, apparently, unpopular with teachers, too. Also available in a chocolate and toffee six-pack.
Yoplait Wildlife Choobs 8/10
Price: 98p for 6 x 40g (approx 16p each); suitable for home freezing
Nutrition: Made with real fruit purée; no artificial colours or sweeteners
Results: Marginally more expensive than the Frubes but with nicer packaging. All the children adored these yoghurts. Each purchase supports the charity Conservation in Action, if you like to consume with conscience. The Wildlife brand is also available in traditional pots and there was much relief that both tubes and pots included a joke.
Munch Bunch Squeezy Pot Shots Fromage Frais 7/10
Price: £1.19 for 6 x 40g (approx 20p each)
Nutrition: Made with whole milk and real fruit purée; no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives
Results: The vibrant packaging, featuring Rozzy Raspberry, Sally Strawberry and Andy Apricot on the pots, provoked a stampede. A twist-and-tear opening was managed by all and ‘best so far’ was the verdict of several jurors, even though the yoghurts are aimed at a very young market (suitable for babies aged four months and up).
Yoplait Wildlife Yo-To-Go Yoghurt 5/10
Price: £1.74 for 6 x 90g (approx 29p each)
Nutrition: Made with real fruit juice; no artificial colours or sweetenersResults: Proved more appealing to the older children, who weren’t put off by the size (at 90g, these yoghurt ‘pouches’ are over twice the size of the tubes tested). The pouches come in just strawberry and raspberry flavours. The ‘ideal for car journeys’ claim was strongly contested by parents.
Kellogg’s Real Fruit Winders 3/10
Price: 29p per roll
Nutrition: Made with 60% fruit
Results: Not a yoghurt, but a fruit product in a league of its own. A paper backing is unwound to dispense an elastic-like strip of sickly foodstuff available in either strawberry, blackcurrant or orange flavours and supposedly containing 60% fruit. Parents disliked the fact that the Winders purported to be fruit but visually bore no relation to it. The children were split between those who loved them and those who just couldn’t cope with the concept.
Cheese To Please
Cheese sandwiches are the epitome of playground uncool; if you want cheese, it’s got to be in strips, strings or sticks. Again, adults realised that these processed cheese snacks provided little other than just a mild calcium boost (and something to eat when they come home drunk), although children seem to find them interactive and fun to eat.
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.
Slice ’n’ Easy
Build-your-own lunches were popular with the kids, who loved the chance to play with their biscuits and cheese. But these were, on the whole, the least popular choices for a lunchbox.
Dairylea Lunchables 3/10
Price: £1.25 for 110g pack
Nutrition: 69% RDA calcium
Results: This range of self-assembly snacks includes flavours such as hot dog, tender turkey, ham and cheese pizza and tasty chicken. The golden crackers disappeared quickly, but the plain and flavoured slices had little taste. Such a big pack was off-putting, and the children soon gave up on the slices and concentrated on the biscuits. Parents felt a half quantity would be more realistic and that this was a waste of packaging and ‘very expensive for what is basically cheese and biscuits’.
Bite-To-Eat 2/10
Price: 99p per pack
Nutrition: RDAs not given
Results: ‘Way too much,’ was the adult verdict again, although the children liked the self-assembly aspect. It comprised Ritz-like cheesy crackers – which went down fairly well – and two sections of Double Chunky Cheddar slices which, despite the colour difference, tasted the same and were left uneaten.