The school trip lunch: pack your own, ask once (Mila & Friends, Episode 4)

A read-aloud story about the school trip lunch, for gluten-free kids and the grown-ups who pack their lunches. The class is off to a farm for the day, Mila packs her lunchbox all by herself, and at the campfire she asks one question. Episode 4 is about a day away from your own kitchen, and the grown-ups who plan ahead.

Packed by Mila

On the morning of the class trip, Mila packed her own lunch. All of it. Papa was allowed to hold the lid.

She had a plan, and the plan had four parts. Something to fill you up: a bread roll from Papa's Saturday baking, with cheese inside. Something crunchy: cucumber sticks. Something sweet: apple slices, with a squeeze of lemon so they would not go brown. And a drink, in her own bottle, the one with the dent.

In Mila's house everybody ate the way Mila ate, so the kitchen was full of things she could have, and packing was mostly choosing. "And a boiled egg," she decided. "For strength. Farms are hard work."

Papa clicked the lid shut. Luna watched from the windowsill, a little offended that nobody had packed anything for her.

Bread on a stick

The farm had three goats, one very loud rooster and a barn that smelled of hay and sunshine. At lunchtime the whole class sat on hay bales and opened their lunchboxes, and Mila's was, she felt, the best one there. Leo said it looked like a picnic for a small king.

Then Frau Sommer clapped her hands. "After lunch," she said, "Herr Otto is lighting the fire. Who wants to make bread on a stick?"

Everybody cheered. Herr Otto, who cooked lunch at school every single day and had come along with a very big bowl, waved his wooden spoon.

Mila did not cheer. Bread on a stick was bread, and bread was usually wheat, and wheat and Mila's tummy were not friends, not even a little bit. Leo looked at her face and stopped cheering too.

One question

Mama always said you only need to ask once, if you ask the right person. The right person here was the one holding the bowl.

So Mila walked over to the fire, with Leo half a step behind her, and asked. "Herr Otto, is the dough gluten-free?"

Herr Otto bent right down to her height. "This bowl? No," he said. "This is wheat dough. Wheat has gluten in it, so this bowl is not for you." Then he smiled under his moustache. "But I made a plan."

Herr Otto's plan

Out of the basket came a small tub with a teal lid. "Frau Sommer told me about you last week," said Herr Otto, "and your mama sent a bag of your flour. The yellow one with the sunflower. I made your dough first thing this morning, in a clean bowl, before I even opened the wheat."

Then he handed her a long stick with a teal ribbon tied round the end. "Your dough. Your stick. Your end of the fire."

Mila rolled her dough into a snake and wound it round the stick, the way Herr Otto showed everyone. Across the fire, Frau Sommer gave her a thumbs up. The grown-ups had made the plan a whole week ago. Mila just had to ask, and now she knew.

Half for Leo

Leo held his bread much too close to the flames, because he was in a hurry, which is how most bread on a stick goes wrong. It came out black. Completely black. "It's a volcano," he said bravely, and they both laughed so much that Leo nearly fell off the hay bale.

Mila's came out golden. She looked at it, and then at Leo's sad black lump, and tore hers in half.

"Here," she said, dropping the warm half into his hands. "Mine tastes like bread. Just more golden."

Leo ate it in two bites and said it was the best bread on a stick in the whole history of farms. Pip, on the fence post, waited hopefully for crumbs. There were none left.

Pack your own, ask once

That evening the teal lunchbox came home empty, with a teal ribbon tied round its handle, and Mila fell asleep on the sofa with her boots still on.

Pack your own lunch. Ask once, and ask the person holding the bowl. Then enjoy the day. Our free lunchbox ideas sheet has the packing part, in English, German and Italian, ready for the next trip.

The end, until next Sunday.

For parents: pack it, ask once, plan the extras

Pack the day, not just the lunch. For a day trip, the packed lunch is the easy part, and the part your child can own. Naturally gluten-free food needs no special label: Coeliac UK lists meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, rice and potatoes among the foods you can eat on the gluten-free diet. For anything packaged, the ingredient list is what decides. Add a roll or crackers from your own gluten-free shelf and the lunchbox is done. Letting your child choose and pack it is half the fun and most of the confidence.

Ask about the extras before the day. Lunch is rarely the surprise. The surprise is the campfire bread, the ice-cream stop or the baking corner. Coeliac UK reminds schools not to forget school trips, celebrations and cookery classes, and its guidance for school caterers recommends a written plan, made with the parents, that covers the key points of the school year. When the trip letter comes home, ask the teacher one question: is any food planned apart from the packed lunch? Then there is time for a Herr Otto plan.

What a good plan looks like. The gluten-free version made separately, with clean hands, a clean bowl and clean tools. Coeliac UK’s kitchen advice is to keep gluten-free ingredients separate during storage and preparation. At a campfire that means your child’s own dough, own stick and own end of the fire. If nobody can say how something was made, the packed lunch has already done its job, and a gluten-free treat from home in the rucksack means your child still has something in hand when the others do.

Sources: Coeliac UK, read 3 October 2026. We inform, we don’t diagnose: for medical questions your paediatrician or dietitian has the last word.

Read on

• School trips with coeliac disease: how your child joins in
• Gluten-free packed lunches: ideas for break time and school trips
• Kids' gluten-free lunchbox ideas, the free printable (EN, DE, IT)
• Gluten-free at school, the info sheet for teachers and carers
• Episode 3: Sunday at Nonna's
• All Little GF Adventures episodes