Lunchbox wars : Navigating the shark infested custard of healthy school meals politics

After a government-commissioned report found that just one per cent of packed lunches were as nutritious as school meals, it is being claimed in some quarters that packed lunches should be banned and free school lunches made available to all primary school pupils.

Whether this is practical – or even desirable – is a matter for others to decide - but what steps can brands take to win over children and mums to healthy food? Can – or should - brands be taking steps to become the champion of the healthy packed lunch, or is their responsibility simply towards selling the products they make?

The report found that the packed lunch bias remains in favour of a sandwich, crisps, drink, chocolate and fruit (which is often returned uneaten). In an ideal world the aim would be to subtly change the 'make up' of a packed lunch, but the vast majority of parents probably want something that is easy to prepare and acceptable to their kids – eating something of indifferent long term health is better than the short term risk of their kids eating not eating anything.

Combining the benefits of convenience and acceptability to children gives us the plethora of "individually wrapped" products to place in a lunch box. However, there are products like Cheestrings, which are undeniably child-friendly in their focus and convenience, which have also tried to leverage their health credentials.

So how might brands develop products that kids will love and parents will approve thus making inroads into this significant territory? How can they get the correct balance between the sometimes competing wishes of kids, parents, teachers, campaigners, the government... One of the problems in this debate is the dissonance between what people need, what they want, what they say they would like and what they subsequently do. It is undoubtedly the case that the children of our nation need healthy lunches (whether in boxes or school meals), however what our kids want is often a different matter. Thus, when asked, parents might say that they would like healthy options but what they then put in their packing up reflects what their kids want rather than need. How can better research help brands navigate this sea of cognitive dissonance.

First of all do involve parents – who will probably remind you that convenience is the elephant in the room in all of this – preparing several packed lunches day in day out can be a tedious and time consuming chore. But don’t just involve them by asking them what they want. Instead a combination of self-ethnography (e.g. via smartphone to capture real behaviour, real rituals) combined with a behavioural economics-inspired quantitative study will provide a far more authentic account of what will work in market, than relying on a more classic approach.

Brands that take this more sensitive approach will understand which buttons to press to deliver the healthiness that many parents would love to provide, in a way which fits with kids wants & with the practicalities of family’s everyday lives.