Frequently Asked Questions

Yes! The core weekly planner — generating meal plans, viewing recipes, and downloading shopping lists — is completely free. We may introduce premium features in the future, but the essentials will always remain free.

The planner picks 5 lunch menus for the week from the recipe database. It prioritises variety across categories (Sandwich, Hot, Baking, Cold) and applies any allergy or dietary filters you've set. You can also add fridge leftovers or favourite ingredients to influence the selection. It is variety by category — it does not score a week for nutritional balance.

An account is optional — everything on the planner works without one. You can generate a week, download the PDF and print the shopping list as a guest. If you do create an account (email and password; there is no Google or Facebook login), you can star favourite menus so they come up more often, and email a plan to yourself.

Yes. Once your weekly plan is generated you can download it as a PDF. For each day it shows the lunch, its main ingredients, the estimated cost and an estimated calorie figure, followed by a shopping list grouped by category (Produce, Meat & Seafood, Dairy & Eggs, Bakery, etc.). The shopping list in the PDF has item names only — per-item prices are shown on the planner screen. With a free account you can also email the PDF to yourself.

Kiwi Lunchbox Planner supports English, Korean (한국어), and Chinese (中文). Use the language selector in the top navigation bar to switch.

Yes. Kiwi Lunchbox Planner is fully responsive and works on smartphones and tablets. You can plan your week and view shopping lists on the go.

Getting started is simple and takes under a minute. Visit the Planner page and you'll see a sidebar with customisation options. You can set allergy and dietary filters (nut, dairy, gluten, egg, sesame, vegetarian, vegan), exclude specific ingredients your child doesn't like, and even add fridge leftovers you want to use up. Once you're happy with your settings, click 'Generate Plan' and you'll have a complete 5-day school lunch plan within about 5 seconds. Each day includes a main lunch item with its ingredients, up to two snacks (a fruit or vegetable, plus one from the protein and dairy or savoury crunch group), and an estimated cost from Woolworths NZ prices. You can then download the whole plan as a PDF or, with a free account, email the PDF to yourself. No account is needed for the basic features — just open the page and start planning.

Yes, one day at a time. Each day card has a 'Swap this day' button that replaces just that day's lunch and its snacks with another recipe that fits the same allergy, excluded-ingredient, prep-style and thermos filters the plan was made with and isn't already in that week; the day's cost, the week total and the shopping list update to match. If no other recipe fits, it says so and leaves the day as it is. To start over, Generate makes a fresh 5-day plan from 94 recipes. Before you generate, you can steer the result: exclude ingredients you'd rather avoid, add something from the fridge in the 'Fridge Leftovers' field so meals using it are favoured, choose prep styles or thermos-friendly meals, and, with a free account, mark lunches you like as favourites so they come up more often.

Yes. The menus are built around a school lunchbox, but none of them are only for children — they are ordinary meals in lunchbox form. If you are already making one, the simplest approach is a bigger portion of the same meal, drawn from the shopping list you already have. One thing to keep in mind: an adult portion will cost more than a child's. The planner's Portion size setting has an Adult option that scales each ingredient's share by about ×1.46 — an estimate from average daily energy needs for adults compared with children aged 5–12, from the Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand. The per-box costs elsewhere on the site are for a child's lunchbox. We would rather say that than let you plan a week's budget on a number that does not fit.

Yes. Before generating your plan you can select Nut Allergy, Dairy Allergy, Gluten Allergy, Egg Allergy, Sesame Allergy, Vegetarian and Vegan, in any combination. The planner excludes matching mains and snacks, and the shopping list is built only from what survives. The two are filtered on different evidence: mains on our own recipe tags; packaged snacks on the allergen declaration printed on the supermarket product we track; fresh fruit and vegetables, and the few snacks whose tracked product carries no declaration, on flags we set by hand. That is how Rice Wheels, a chicken-flavoured rice snack, is kept out of a dairy-free plan: nothing in the name suggests dairy, but the packet declares milk. Sesame is the exception for mains: there is no recipe tag for it, so a main is kept only if none of its ingredients' tracked products declares sesame, and unlabelled bread, pastry and spice ingredients are left out because we cannot check them. If nothing in a snack category qualifies, that slot is left empty rather than filled with something that does not.

We take allergy safety seriously and have carefully tagged every recipe in our database. Snacks are checked against the allergen declaration on the tracked product. We exclude on the declared allergens only — a 'may contain traces of' or 'made on a line that also produces' warning does not remove an item, because almost every packaged snack in a New Zealand supermarket carries one. We also cannot guarantee that the product you buy matches the one we tracked: manufacturers change formulations and cross-contamination can occur. Always read the label on every product you purchase. For severe allergies, consult your healthcare provider.

Yes. Enable the 'Nut Allergy' filter and the planner will only suggest nut-free menus, with nut-free snacks alongside them. All menus in our database are reviewed for nut content and packaged snacks are checked against the allergen declaration on the product we track; fresh fruit, vegetables and the few snacks without a declaration are flagged by hand. Cross-contamination warnings are not used to exclude items, so for a school with a strict nut-free policy, still read the packet before it goes in the bag.

Yes, absolutely. You can enable as many allergy filters as you need simultaneously. For example, if your child is both nut-free and dairy-free, select both filters and the planner will only suggest meals that are free of both allergens. All seven filters (nut, dairy, gluten, egg, sesame, vegetarian, vegan) can be combined in any combination. The planner will warn you if there are very few recipes available for your specific filter combination, so you'll know if you need to relax one of the restrictions to get a full 5-day plan.

Our recipes are tagged based on their listed ingredients — if a recipe doesn't contain nuts in its ingredient list, it's tagged as nut-free. However, we cannot account for cross-contamination that may occur during manufacturing of commercial products or in your own kitchen. For children with severe allergies (particularly anaphylaxis risk), we strongly recommend always checking the label of every product you purchase, even if you've bought it before, as manufacturers can change formulations and production lines. Our planner is a planning aid, not a medical device. For severe allergies, please consult your child's allergist or immunologist and inform the school directly.

As a starting point, yes. The gluten-free filter keeps only the mains we have flagged gluten-free, and snacks whose tracked product declares no gluten (fresh fruit and vegetables are flagged by hand). Recipes with wheat, barley, rye or oats are never flagged gluten-free. Oats are treated as not gluten-free, with no exceptions: under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, a food containing oats cannot be labelled gluten-free. Some gluten-free recipes rely on buying the gluten-free version of a product, such as GF bread, GF pasta or GF crackers, and the ingredient list says so. The flags are our own reading of each recipe, not a certification, and sauces, stocks and other packaged items vary by brand. Coeliac disease requires strict avoidance of even trace amounts of gluten, and cross-contamination in manufacturing is a real concern, so always check that the specific products and brands you buy are gluten-free and suitable for a coeliac diet. Coeliac New Zealand (coeliac.org.nz) maintains a list of certified products that can help with shopping.

Yes, with one setting. Tick Kindy (under 5) under Allergies / Restrictions before you generate a plan. The planner then leaves out the foods that the Ministry of Health's guidance on reducing food-related choking at early learning services says to exclude — for example dried fruit, popcorn, chips, hard rice crackers and sausages — and each day lists how to prepare the foods the guidance says to alter, such as grating raw apple or carrot, quartering grapes and cherry tomatoes, and chopping meat small. We also leave out roasted chickpeas; that one is our own call, not the guidance's. Ticking it also sets Portion size to Kindy, which scales the standard 5–12 serve to about ×0.76 — an estimate from average energy needs, which you can change. If your kindy has its own food rules, follow those. The kindy lunchbox guide in our Guides section goes through each rule.

Each day's figure covers every ingredient in the meal, plus the snacks listed on that card. Each ingredient is costed as the share of a supermarket pack you'd actually use — two slices from a loaf, not the whole loaf. It does not include a drink, or anything visible in a photo that isn't on the ingredient list; the photos are illustrative rather than a picture of the exact box. Prices come from Woolworths NZ and move week to week. In July 2026 we found and fixed a bug that had been mis-costing pack fractions, so figures published before then were unreliable — the numbers you see now are recalculated. Across our full menu set a box currently works out at a median of about $3.70, ranging from roughly $2 to $7.10 depending on the main.

Price estimates are based on the regular shelf prices of specific Woolworths NZ products, refreshed weekly. Prices are approximations and may differ at your local store or on sale days. Pak'nSave and New World prices may vary. Use the estimates as a planning guide rather than exact values.

A few things move the number more than the rest. First, protein is what drives a lunchbox budget — the single biggest line in a costed week is usually the meat, so a meat-free day or two saves more than trimming snacks. On our menu set a vegetarian main runs about 40% less than one with meat. Second, check unit price rather than sticker price: a yoghurt pouch can cost two to three times the same yoghurt from a tub even when the pouch is on special. Third, use the planner's 'Fridge Leftovers' field so the week is built around what you already have. Fourth, store choice matters, but less than people assume — across the 19 staples I can compare fairly, Pak'nSave came out 10.4% cheaper than Woolworths ($97.80 against $87.64), and about half of that gap sat in just three items: sliced chicken, cheese and bread. New World is run by the same co-operative as Pak'nSave and came out dearer than both — $86.43 against Woolworths $82.90 and Pak'nSave $75.66 on the 17 items priced at all three. Woolworths was last read on 18 October 2026. A row joins these comparisons when each chain's reading is within 30 days of that round, because a row keeps its last regular price in any week that item is on special or the weekly read fails — so some rows are older than others, and the NZ Lunchbox Price Index gives every row its own date.

Both, and they are kept separate on purpose. The baseline cost of every menu uses regular Woolworths shelf prices, refreshed weekly - that is the honest 'any week of the year' figure. On top of that, each Monday the Woolworths and New World mailers are transcribed and what is on special is recorded. A special only changes a price when it can be matched to the exact product at the same pack size and is actually cheaper than the price already tracked - otherwise the regular price stands and no discount badge appears. That bar is deliberately high, and most advertised specials do not clear it: a flyer's 'was' price is that brand's own regular price, which is often above what we already track. So the toggle mostly works by ranking cheaper lunches higher rather than by finding large discounts, and the saving shown is only the part that can be stood behind. Regular prices are tracked separately at the NZ Lunchbox Price Index, which is how you can tell a real discount from a sticker.

The planner currently generates one week at a time. For a two-week shopping list, we recommend generating two separate plans and combining the shopping lists manually. Many parents find it useful to generate both weeks on Sunday, then buy the non-perishable items (canned goods, pasta, crackers, etc.) for both weeks at once, and pick up fresh items (bread, fruit, deli meats) at the start of each week. This approach reduces shopping trips while keeping ingredients fresh.

Calorie estimates are based on standard portion sizes and average nutritional values from generic food databases. They are rough estimates intended to give a ballpark idea of energy content — not a substitute for precise nutritional tracking. Actual calories will vary based on specific brands and portion sizes used.

Honest answer: the planner does not check a week against the Ministry of Health's four food groups. There is no food-group logic in the code. What it does is enforce variety across recipe categories (Sandwich, Hot, Baking, Cold) so a week is not five sandwiches, apply your allergy and dietary filters, and show an estimated calorie figure per lunch based on standard portion sizes. That estimate is not a substitute for a nutrition plan. The nutrition writing on this site — the complete nutrition guide in particular — is benchmarked against Ministry of Health and Heart Foundation NZ guidance and cites its sources. If your child has specific dietary requirements, see a registered dietitian.

Our standard serve is sized for primary school children aged 5-12, which covers Years 1-8 in the NZ school system, and every cost elsewhere on this site — articles, the homepage and the price figures — is on that basis. In the planner you can change it under Portion size: Kindy (about ×0.76), Primary Years 1–6 (×0.94), Intermediate Years 7–8 (×1.17), College Years 9–13 (×1.39) or Adult (×1.46). The planner multiplies each ingredient's share of a pack — and so the cost and the calorie figure — by that ratio; the menus stay the same. The ratios come from average daily energy needs by age in the Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand (NHMRC / NZ Ministry of Health), so they are an estimate rather than a prescription, and single items like one egg or one yoghurt pot don't scale neatly. The calorie figure is a rough estimate rather than a target. Children still vary a lot: if they consistently bring food home, reduce the portion; if they're hungry after school, add an extra component like a piece of fruit or a small muesli bar. The Kindy (under 5) option under Allergies / Restrictions is separate: it leaves out foods with a high choking risk for young children, and ticking it also sets Portion size to Kindy.

Our calorie figure is a rough estimate. For each ingredient we take a generic energy value per 100g and a typical portion weight and add them up; an ingredient we have no value for gets a small flat allowance. These are generic values, not figures from a named food composition database or from the labels of the products we price, so treat the number as a ballpark — it is not precise enough for clinical use. We do not calculate protein, sugar or other nutrients. Actual values will vary with the brands and quantities you use. For children with medical conditions that require precise nutritional tracking (such as diabetes), please use a clinical-grade food tracking tool and consult your healthcare provider.

Absolutely! We'd love your feedback. Use our Contact page to send us recipe suggestions, report incorrect allergy tags, or flag any issues. We review all submissions and update the database regularly.

In the Planner sidebar, you'll find a 'Fridge Leftovers' field. Type in an ingredient you already have (e.g., 'chicken', 'spinach'), and the planner will prioritise menus that use that ingredient. This helps reduce food waste and save money.

Supermarket prices are refreshed weekly — every chain column in the price index is read from that chain's own online shop in the same run. New recipes are added in batches rather than on a schedule: the database went from 63 to 94 menus across July 2026 and has been at 94 since. Corrections happen whenever something is found to be wrong — two gluten-free flags were fixed on 20 August 2026, for instance. If you notice a recipe that looks outdated or a price that seems wrong, please tell me via the Contact page.

Yes. The easiest way is to download the plan as a PDF and share it via email, a messaging app, or AirDrop. The PDF has the 5-day menu — each lunch with its main ingredients, estimated cost and calories — and the full shopping list, which covers what your partner needs for the shop. It does not include the recipe steps; open a lunch on the planner screen to see how to make it. With a free account you can also send the PDF to your own email address using the 'Email Plan' button and forward it from there. We're considering adding shared accounts for families, where both parents can access and edit the same plan — let us know via the Contact page if this would be useful for your family.

We appreciate your help in keeping Kiwi Lunchbox accurate! Head to our Contact page and select 'Technical Support' as the subject. Please include as much detail as possible: the recipe name, what seems incorrect (wrong ingredient, allergy tag error, broken pricing, etc.), and if it's a technical issue, your browser name and version plus a screenshot if possible. We review all reports and aim to fix confirmed issues within 48 hours for allergy-related errors, or within one week for other corrections. Your feedback directly improves the experience for all NZ families using the planner.

We take data security seriously. If you create an account, we store your email address and the recipes you mark as favourites, using Supabase (a SOC 2-compliant database platform). Your meal plans are not stored on our servers — the last plan you generated is kept only in your own browser. We do not store payment information, dietary health records, or any information about your children. Cookies are used to remember your preferences (such as language) and your sign-in session. Google Analytics 4 collects anonymous usage statistics (pages visited, session duration, device type) with IP anonymisation enabled, and it only loads if you accept cookies in the cookie banner. Google AdSense uses cookies to serve ads; you can turn off personalised ads in Google's Ads Settings. We never sell your personal data. For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

You need an internet connection to generate a plan, because plans are built on our server. Prices are not fetched live: they come from a weekly Woolworths price table that is bundled with the site when it is published. Once you've generated a plan, you can download it as a PDF, which works fully offline. One way to use it: generate the plan when you have Wi-Fi, save the PDF to your phone's Files app, and refer to it through the week without a connection.

Menus are added in small batches rather than on a fixed schedule. Each one is costed against tracked Woolworths prices, tagged for the six dietary filters (nut-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, egg-free, vegetarian, vegan) and checked against what is actually stocked in New Zealand supermarkets. Prices move faster than menus: every chain column in the price index is refreshed weekly from that chain's own online shop, and the current mailer specials are recorded every Monday. This is a one-person project, so there is no editorial team — just me and the receipts. Recipe suggestions are welcome via the Contact page.