School lunches go online

The Press

GROWING APPETITES: Emma Griffin has set up new company, Kids School Lunches, selling school lunches to primary school children. She is pictured here with her three children Leo, 2, Stella, 5 weeks and Madeline Sharpe, 4.

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Not many people consider starting a business in the midst of a recession, let alone being six months' pregnant as well, but Emma Griffin did.

The 32-year-old Christchurch mother of three children, aged four, two, and five weeks, started trialling Kids School Lunches at the beginning of the year, and is gearing up to expand the business.

"I was looking around for something to do. It's good having children but it's quite nice having something else to do," she said.

So she set up an online school lunch delivery business, www.kidslunches.co.nz, after seeing a gap in the market to provide healthy lunches.

There was never a perfect time to do anything, and setting up the business when she was pregnant gave her something else to think about, Griffin said.

The service was aimed at working parents who struggled to find the time to make a completely healthy lunch every day.

"It's one less thing they have to worry about at night or in the morning."

Parents can order and pay for the lunches online and for $5.80 they get to choose four different foods, including salads, rolls, sandwiches, pizza, sushi, fresh fruit and sweet treats such as banana cake and cookies.

Griffin admitted that sales might have been better had she started the business a couple of years earlier, but she still believed there was a need for it now.

"I still thought it was a good idea. I'm happy to keep tracking along until things pick up a bit."

Griffin started with three schools that were close to her Heathcote home, Mount Pleasant, St Marks and St Martins and has since added Freeville.

She was averaging about 20 lunches a day, but would like to build that to 100 lunches and 10 schools. More schools were needed to enable her to make a profit, because she was only just able to cover costs at the existing level.

Griffin started making the lunches and doing the deliveries herself, but as orders grew she enlisted Victoria Food Service to do both.

She has a science degree with a background in marketing and also did a post-graduate diploma in nutrition and constructed the menu herself.

Once Griffin got school support, parents were told about the service through the newsletter.

In the past, many schools relied on parents coming in each day to make food to sell for lunches, but schools were finding it hard to get parents who had the time these days, Griffin said.

Some have Subway once a week, others bring in sushi or have a fundraising sausage sizzle, but Kids School Lunches gave parents an option every day, she said.

The ultimate aim was to expand into Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin.

- © Fairfax NZ News