Lunchables

Lunchables

2013 box design of Lunchables.
Place of origin	United States
Region or state	Fullerton, California
Created by	Bob Drane Tom Bailey Jeff James
Invented	1988; 29 years ago (1988)
Similar dishes	Lunch Mates

Lunchables is a brand of food manufactured by Kraft Heinz and marketed under the Oscar Mayer brand in the United States and Canada, and manufactured by Mondelēz and marketed under the Dairylea brand in the UK. They were initially introduced in 1988 in Seattle before being released nationally in 1989. Many Lunchables products are produced in a Fullerton, California facility, and are then distributed across the United States.

Lunchables was designed in 1985 by Bob Drane, Tom Bailey, and Jeff James as a way for Oscar Mayer to sell more bologna and other lunch meat. After organizing focus groups of American mothers Drane discovered that their primary concern was time. Working mothers especially were pressed by the time constraints of fixing breakfast for their families as well as packing something for their children to eat at school. This gave Drane the idea of creating a convenient prepackaged lunch featuring Oscar Mayer's trademark red meat. Crackers were substituted for bread because they could last longer in grocery coolers. The cheese was provided by Kraft when Oscar Mayer merged with Kraft in 1988. The design of the package was based on the look of an American TV dinner.

The term Lunchables emerged from a list of possible names for the prepackaged meal that included among others: On-Trays, Crackerwiches, Mini Meals, Lunch Kits, Snackables, Square Meals, Walk Meals, Go-Packs, and Fun Mealz.

Lunchables offers 26 different varieties of meal combinations, which include crackers, pizzas, chicken nuggets, small hot dogs, small burgers, nachos, subs, and wraps. In a typical package, such as the crackers meal combination, it contains an equal number of crackers and small slices of meat and cheese. The brand also created two versions targeting adults, by increasing the amount of food offered in each package, but these have since been discontinued. The first was called the "Deluxe" and contained two types of meats and cheeses as well as mustard and a mint. The second version, called "Maxed Out" (originally Mega Packs), was available with 40% more food than a regular Lunchables.

Lunchables also carries an assortment of drinks and desserts. In certain meal combinations, they contain Capri Sun juice drinks, either in a traditional flavor or of the "Roarin’ Waters" variant. Other drinks that are included are bottled water with Tropical Punch flavored Kool-Aid mix and a generic unlabeled small can of cola; however, the latter was later replaced with Capri Sun drinks due to health concerns. As for dessert, some packages contain Jell-O gelatin or pudding or a candy alternative, such as Butterfingers or Reese's cups.