Project 2015-08-05 15:29:12 +1200

Our story

Late October last year, over a couple of wines on Waiheke Island, Lisa and Iaan were reflecting on their marketing careers, realising that they had been selling fat, salt and sugar to the NZ public for 30 years between them. With four young children, they found it ironic that the very products they had marketed so successfully were not allowed in their own home.

As parents they couldn’t fathom that the country they were so proud to grow up in had children going to school hungry. The growing divide between the have’s and have-not’s should not be happening in a place like New Zealand. They decided that night to put their corporate experience to good use and start doing something that really mattered.

Even though Lisa was a passionate home cook, they realised they needed some serious food expertise to get Eat My Lunch off the ground. Enter top NZ chef Michael Meredith who Lisa has known for years. Michael is deeply passionate about poverty in NZ (having experienced it himself growing up in Samoa). There was an instant shared passion and Michael has been there everyday at 6am making lunches with the team ever since.

What matters to us

Childhood poverty has divided the nation and scrutiny on the negative health impact of cheap, packaged foods are rife in the media.

1 in 4 Kiwi kids (260,000) live in poverty. Many don’t have access to basic nutrition which impacts on their ability to learn.

67% of NZ adults and 33% of children are obese or over-weight, with NZ ranking as the third-fattest country in the OECD.

The correlation between poverty, poor nutrition and obesity is clear - a dults & children living in the most deprived areas are four times as likely to be obese as those living in the least deprived areas.

There are 250,000 diabetics in NZ and a further 750,000 Kiwis are ‘pre-diabetic’.

By 2016, obesity will overtake tobacco as the leading health risk in NZ.

Clearly, establishing healthy eating habits has far reaching ramifications across a broad range of social issues.

Our solution

EML is an innovative start up with ‘doing good’ at its heart. We believe that clever business solutions can solve the big social issues of tomorrow. Our dream is lofty. To alleviate poverty in NZ, starting with kid’s lunches:

For every lunch you Buy, we Give a lunch to a Kiwi kid in need.

BUY ONE. GIVE ONE.

An online subscription lunch service, just $10 pays for two lunches; one for you (delivered to work) and one for a Kiwi kid in need. Nutritious, fresh food with a focus on less sugar, more veggies and nothing in a packet.

Eat My Lunch gives Kiwis the choice to make a difference in our own backyard, everyday, through something as simple as eating lunch.

What we’ve done so far

Since we started 10 weeks ago, the outpour of support from across the country has been staggering:

The team has made over 34,000 lunches in just 10 weeks.

17,000 have been Given to Kiwi kids in need in 12 schools. By the end of week 11, this will be 21,000 lunches Given to kids in 16 schools! and we've received amazing feedback, such as the letter below from a teacher in Otara.

Thousands of Kiwis have joined Eat My Lunch and are Buying lunch on a regular basis.

We have 40+ volunteers who come to our home every week to help us make all these lunches (including Nici Wickes, Julie Le Clerc and Jacqueline Nairn).

Of course, we can’t forget Lorde who helped us by being our first ‘Give Two’ customer and buying lunches for Te Papapa School for a whole week! Her instagram post went to over 10million people and also got people from places such as New York, London, California and Australia 'Giving Two'.

What next?

Currently we are making all these lunches from our family home and have about 20 people in our house everyday! The house is bursting, so we need to move into a bigger space to accommodate the production crew and do things like roast 60 chickens and cut 500kg of carrots!

With your help to raise $180,000, we will be able to fit out a commercial space with the right equipment (ovens, hoods, benches, chillers and freezers), pay for some rent and also get more staff. This means we will be able to make Eat My Lunch available to more Kiwis so that everyone can participate in BUY ONE. GIVE ONE.

And then?

If we can reach our stretch target of $200,000+, we will be able to fund a cooking school for under-privileged kids to educate them about cooking and nutrition. This is a huge passion of Michael’s as it was through a cooking course for Island kids that he found his talent for cooking.

How can you help?

You can help take Eat My Lunch to the next level and make a difference right here in our own backyard!

So please pledge to our campaign (we have some amazing rewards like our limited edition Eat My Lunch t-shirt & aprons) and share with your friends.





Every little bit can make a difference!

#PledgeMyLunch

www.facebook.com/eatmylunch.nz



