Foam3D™ Fabs Finger Food for Lunchables® Launch

Situation

Encased in iconic yellow packaging, once retrieved from a backpack, a Kraft Lunchables® is easy espied across any lunchroom—and its holder made the immediate envy of their companions. Available in a variety of youth-centric cuisine configurations, a Lunchables® is the midday meal that instantly outclasses any lunchbox leftovers or pedestrian PB&J. From portable pizza kits to the infallible trifecta of ham, cheese, and crackers, replete with a replenishing Capri Sun, these self-contained lunch kits are designed to inspire creativity. Intended to spur imaginations and overturn the traditional taboo of playing with your food, Kraft Lunchables launched the Lunch-A-Build This campaign. Featuring detailed online schematics on how to construct your own finger-food sculptures, kids can build and upload (with parents/guardian permission) their own edible artwork! Looking to showcase their interactive Lunch-A-Builds and further promote participation, Kraft entrusted Britten to build some outsized Foam3D™ Lunchables® creations for their mobile touring displays.

Solution

Each aspect of the massive Lunch-A-Build would be carved from uniform 1.5 foam blocks. Utilizing the leading Rinoceros® CAD modeling software to create the design and employing cutting-edge FROGMill™ CNC milling equipment to carve the foam, the Britten team began to methodically manufacture each piece. Crafting macro-scale torn pizza crust (complete with frayed edged texture), immense cheese squares and colossal chicken kabobbles (Lunchables®ß speak for nuggets), each element was sculpted and primed for paint. Rounded out with some touch-up sanding, a base coat of paint, and a custom air-brushed Standard Coat finish for that perfect textured look and added protection, these enormous Foam3D™ Lunchables® elements looked almost edible!

Impact

The final result was three impressively immense Lunch-A-Build sculptures—a pizza crust grand piano with mozzarella cheese ivory keys, a snack cracker-hulled boat with salami gunwales and cheese paddlewheel, and a ponderous dinosaur with rotund chicken kabobble legs, a spine ridged with cheese slice spikes, and all pinned together with pretzels. This completed trio was nothing short of astonishing. Loaded onto custom Lunch-A-Build branded trucks with customized glass box display, these Foam3D™ creations were destined to tour Cleveland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco and generate some gleeful attention for Lunchables®. Made possible by the Foam3D™, it’s no doubt that this fanciful fare will serve as mobile food for thought and will have creative minds turning out Lunch-A-Build creations of their own!