It’s a struggle many parents know all too well – getting kids dressed, fed and off to school on time. If they take a healthy, nutritious lunch with them, all the better.

But that’s also a reality that many families are missing out on – money is tight, or parents are unsure about what constitutes a nutritious lunch.

Lavinia Hurring and her mother Barbara are hoping to change that for families in their area.

The pair, along with their families, own Dairy with a Difference, on the corner of Elles and Tramway roads.

Since the middle of last year, the pair, along with their team - Jackie Waters, Toni Waters and Maree MacDiarmid - have been creating and selling healthy lunch packs for children and adults.

A sample child’s pack, which costs $5, could include an apple, a small carton of plain milk, a box of raisins, a boiled egg, and carrot sticks. For an extra $1 a small, healthy sandwich can be included.

The adult pack, which sells for $9.50, could include a pottle of yoghurt, some nuts and raisins, a boiled egg, a sandwich, and a piece of fruit.

They have also just started selling homemade vegetable soup again, in takeaway cups or containers. Last winter they encouraged families to bring flasks so the soup was hot and ready for lunch.

The reasoning behind creating the lunch packs was simple.

“If they (parents) know they can come here and grab that, that’s $6 and that’s your child for the day.”

The idea came after Lavinia discovered she couldn’t find any healthy lunch packs for her own children.

“I didn’t like what was on offer, chips and sugary foods.”

So she and Barbara sat down and talked about the possibilities.

Barbara’s love of cooking fresh, wholesome food, helped, and the team have monthly meetings where they discuss healthy options and new ideas.

The lunch packs are starting to gain popularity, and the pair hope more people will switch to healthier food once word gets out about the packs. The dairy is also part of the Healthy Families Invercargill initiative The Healthier Choice.

They have also created a range of homecooked meals – the likes of meatloaf, roast pork, macaroni cheese, corned beef and vegetables, and curried sausages, all selling for around $6 a serving. They are all made from scratch, using no prepackaged products.

The idea was to make the healthier choice the easier choice – time poor or resource stretched people can have access to homecooked, simple meals and can see that creating those meals doesn’t have to be difficult, Lavinia said.

And they are getting results – already one of their customers, a regular who bought two pies every day, has swapped his pies for the frozen meals.

Healthy Families Invercargill manager Jared Cappie said seeing businesses like Dairy with a Difference doing their best to provide customers with healthy foods was a great example of changes that were being made at community level, but that would impact greatly on people’s lives.

People were really starting to see the importance of fuelling their bodies with the right foods, and this was incredibly important when it came to reducing the growing rates of obesity and chronic illness in Invercargill, Cappie said.

“Traditionally dairies had been limited to providing only packaged food and very little fresh or healthy snacks, but there are stores out there that are bucking that trend.”

“Changing the mindset of our community is going to take a collective effort and it is fantastic that we’ve got some motivated and enthusiastic community champions willing and eager to take up that fight,” he said.

Caption: Examples of the lunch packs being created by the Dairy With A Difference. Photo: Healthy Families Invercargill