Eat My Lunch brings on Foodstuffs as a strategic partner

Saturday, 9 September 2017

Foodstuffs buys a 26 per cent stake in Eat My Lunch.

It's already delivered more than half a million free lunches, and now Eat My lunch is teaming up with a supermarket giant to take its mission to feed every hungry Kiwi school kids nationwide.

Foodstuffs, the supermarket chain, which owns New World, Pak 'n Save and Four Square supermarkets, has bought a 26 per cent stake in Eat My Lunch in what they say is a strategic move to align with shoppers values.

Eat My Lunch co-founder Lisa King said the partnership with Foodstuffs would help with food supply and distribution of lunches outside of the major centres.

Chef Michael Meredith packing school lunches at the Eat My Lunch headquarters in central Auckland.

'They have a huge network we can leverage,' she said.

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'They can help us with supply chain logistics, retail opportunities, and could become part of our supply chain, but we are still working through those details.'

Volunteers and staff make lunches every morning for thousands of hungry kids.

Eat My Lunch, also founded by top Auckland chef Michael Meredith, works on a buy one, give one model; providing a free lunch to a child that would normally go without for every lunch it sells.

Foodstuffs chief executive Chris Quin wouldn't say how much the deal cost but said it was a good investment for Eat My Lunch to expand into regional areas.

Eat My Lunch has launched its new range of Eat My Dinner.

'Their story is so appealing. We've invested so they can grow, we have obviously a pretty significant retail presence and we're going to see how we can leverage that to get the product sold,' he said.

Although Eat My Lunch employs 30 people to make the bought lunches, at least 30 volunteers make the children's lunches every weekday morning and King said volunteer positions were full until Christmas.

King said it was no secret the business was designed to make money.

'That volunteer labour helps us keep our costs down so we can do more,' she said.

'I think any commercially well run business staff cost is always a massive factor so we have costed the business if we had to pay staff to make those lunches and it's still a model that can work.

'But having the volunteers helps us greatly and does mean we can do more and give more.'

Volunteer New Zealand chief executive Scott Miller said the success of Eat My Lunch's volunteer program showed the business was offering roles that provided an immediate reward.

'They tell a good story and have a great looking design,' he said.

'What Eat My Lunch have done [with their volunteering program] shows that other charities need to up their game to draw more people in.

Miller said people were drawn towards a 'sexy' cause like helping starving children and Eat My Lunch offered an immediate tangible reward by having volunteers make the food children would eat that day.

'We live in a relatively wealthy country and we don't like to hear children are going to school without food.'