After offering the pre-packaged meals branded as Lunchables on school menus across the country just last year, Kraft Heinz, the company that makes the popular lunch and snack kits, is removing their products from a federally assisted meal program while citing weak demand.
That development came after a Consumer Reports investigation found lead and high levels of sodium in the supermarket versions of Lunchables, though the ones made available at schools were tailored differently to meet federal nutrition regulations. The fact that the version of Lunchables available at schools used different ingredients to meet federal guidelines triggered warnings that they would not taste the same as the ones sold in stores, meaning they could be off-putting to children.
Furthermore, Lunchables’ removal from the federal school lunch program came after Donald Trump clinched a second presidency in the 5 November election and named Robert F Kennedy Jr as his pick for health and human services secretary. Industry experts believe Kennedy’s promise to “make America healthy again” – despite the conspiracy theorist’s skepticism of vaccines that have been proven to be safe – could lead to increased scrutiny of companies who offer pre-packaged food, including Kraft Heinz, as CNBC noted on Friday.
The “stackable” snack originally introduced in the 1980s is easily identifiable by its translucent compartment container wrapped in plastic mustard-colored packaging.
The Lunchables line that has sustained generations of American schoolchildren boasts several types of personal-sized, already packaged lunches like deli meats, cheese, and crackers, and chicken or mozzarella “dunkables”.
The US Food and Drug Administration is notoriously hands-off when it comes to food and nutrition regulations, and only a small number of policies mention ultra-processed foods such as Lunchables. But the sodium limit for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) ranges from 1,110 to 1,290mg.
The modified Lunchables options offered in schools – a turkey, cheddar cheese and cracker kit and a pizza kit – contain 900mg and 700mg respectively. Those two figures, respectively, are more than half and nearly half the American Heart Association’s ideal sodium intake for children.
The American Heart Association warns that high levels of sodium cause higher blood pressure in children and teens, increasing the risk for heart disease and strokes later in life.
A spokesperson for the Kraft Heinz company denied that the Consumer Reports findings or any other interest group affected the decision to halt the offering of Lunchables to a program that provides lunch daily to nearly 30 million students across the US. The spokesperson told the Guardian that the decision to remove Lunchables from school menus was due to “a shift to focus on core retail business growth”.
“We removed National School Lunch Program compliant Lunchables products from schools this year, and we hope to revisit at a future date,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the sales of Lunchables offered in schools during the last academic year “were far less than 1% of overall Lunchables sales, so business impact is negligible”.
While the Lunchables in question may be NSLP compliant, experts do not necessarily consider them healthy.
Jennifer Pomeranz, an associate professor of public health policy and management at New York University’s school of global public health, said the removal of Lunchables from school lunch menus “is good news”.
“Many Lunchables do contain unhealthy food items and ingredients,” Pomeranz said. “Providing them in schools to the nation’s children sends the wrong message to kids that these packaged foods are school-approved and thus healthy. It is important that schools remove ultra-processed foods to the extent they can – especially those clearly linked to health harms such as processed meats, certain snacks and sugary beverages.”
She added: “Many schools struggle with the resources and facilities to provide healthful meals, so better solutions are needed to address the infrastructure challenges rather than relying on ultra-processed packaged food products to feed our children.”
Consumer Reports also tested Lunchables products in supermarkets for lead and measured them against California’s maximum allowable dose level (MADL) since there are no federal restrictions for heavy metals in food and the state has the most protective standards available.
It was discovered that Lunchables products accounted for “50% or more of California’s maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead or cadmium”.
“That’s a relatively high dose of heavy metals, given the small serving sizes of the products, which range from just 2 to 4 ounces,” said Eric Boring, the chemist who led the product testing.
So if a student were to eat more than one Lunchables kit, regardless of where it came from, they could be at risk of consuming a greater amount of lead or other metals than is considered to be safe – at least in California.
That risk now may be removed from school cafeterias, but Lunchables still lurk in grocery store aisles, where parents have to decide what their kids will snack on at home.
“At the supermarket, there are many more types of Lunchables, and research shows that the ones placed at eye level for children were less healthy than the ones at or above eye level for adults,” Pomeranz said. “Thus, when in the store, children are encouraged to ask for the even less healthy version of Lunchables than served in schools.”
