OmieBox wants to revolutionise packed lunches

If you’ve got children, nieces and nephews, or are fulfilling a lifelong dream to be a dinner lady, you’ll know that soggy sandwiches and a Penguin just don’t cut it for lunch anymore. Kids today are eating sushi and quinoa before they can even say ‘sushi’ or ‘it’s pronounced “keen-wah, actually“’ and most schools, nurseries and afterschool activities frown on meals with no nutritional content whatsoever (those spoilsports).

But packing up half a dozen Tupperware containers every day gets old fast, and if you want to send your child in with something hot, they’ll have to suck it out of a flask. That’s where the OmieBox lunchbox comes in. It has leakproof, adjustable compartments, including a vacuum sealed section for hot food that has a wide opening so it’s easy for kids to use. (It can also be removed for days when cold food is on the menu.)

There’s an easy-to-open lid, and it’s designed to be hardwearing. It’s also dishwasher safe. The team behind the design, OmieLife, has a great pedigree, including degrees from Stanford Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so it’s not surprising that they’ve almost doubled their Kickstarter goal of $42,000 with 27 days still to go.

It’s not super cheap to snap one up: you’ll need to pledge $49 (around £29). But it should last a long time, and there’s nothing to say you have to give it your kid. I may work approximately two metres from my kitchen and I may not technically have any children, but it wouldn’t be weird and creepy for me to carry my lunch around in one of these. Right?

Diane Shipley