Dairylea (cheese)

Dairylea Triangles, Dairylea Lunchables, and Dairylea Dunkers are a popular processed cheese product, available in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Background

Dairylea is usually in the form of a thick, spreadable soft cheese-flavoured paste. Famous for the slogans "Kids will eat it until the cows come home" and "Kids will do anything for the taste of Dairylea" and a series of adverts on UK television showing children trading toys and other items of value, or doing dares such as running into the opposite sex's toilets and holding a snail on the arm, for Dairylea Triangles.

Products

Much like The Laughing Cow, Dairylea spread is packaged in a plastic tub; Dairylea triangles are packaged in a cardboard 'wheel' and opening it reveals the foil-wrapped soft cheese product portions. Dairylea is also available in these formats:

• Dairylea Slices; single slices of processed cheese (much like Kraft Singles)
• Dairylea Strip Cheese; string cheese
• Dairylea Dunkers; snacks consisting of cheese spread dip and breadsticks, tortilla chips, Ritz Crackers or jumbo tubes (much like The Laughing Cow Cheez Dippers)
• Dairylea Lunchables; lunchbox staple of crackers, processed cheese and ham or chicken slices, no longer being sold under the Dairylea brand as of 2013

Discontinued formats of Dairylea include:

• Dairylea Rippers
• Dairylea Double Dunkers; as with Dairylea Dunkers but with two dips, either pizza sauce or salsa, and the dunkers were pizza-flavoured crackers and tortilla chips respectively
• Dairylea Tri-Bites; wax-sealed processed cheese triangles, similar to Babybel
• Dairylea Lunchables Pizza
• Dairylea Lunchables Hotdogs

Dairylea also comes in both its original form and a 'Dairylea Light' product marketed as 7% fat. Kraft imply that the product is credited with getting children more interested in cheese.

History

In the early 21st century, Dairylea Lunchables were advertised as being "full of good stuff", though the product contained high amounts of salt and saturated fats.^[1] Despite a 2007 reformulation that reduced salt content by 9% and saturated fat content by 34%, the claim "full of good stuff" was banned by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority.^[2] Kraft meanwhile stated that the salt content in Lunchables had been reduced by a third between 2005 and 2007.^[3] In November 2008 it was found by the Food Commission, an independent consumer watchdog group, that Kraft Dairylea contained high levels of 3-MCPD, a suspected human carcinogen.^[4] In late 2011, a number of health concerns were highlighted by consumers to Dairylea in relation to their packaging using Bisphenol A, a controversial hormone-mimicking plastic additive, which Breast Cancer UK are currently campaigning against. Concerns were initially raised when customers noticed the plastic marker number 7 in a triangle on the pots of Dairylea Jumbo Tubes.

References

External links

• Product home page