Crowdfunding
Schools & consumers
2015
Buy‑one‑give‑one model
Social enterprise food
Lisa King and chef Michael Meredith funded the venture themselves and reinvested sales; corporate sponsorships and debt crowdfunding later supported growth.
Office workers purchasing lunches under the buy-one-give-one model enabled free lunches to be delivered to children in need.
Startup Rollercoaster
The Spark
After 15 years in marketing, Lisa King wanted to address child poverty in New Zealand. In 2015 she partnered with chef Michael Meredith to launch Eat My Lunch, providing free lunches to children from low-income schools with every purchase.
The Peak
The buy-one-give-one model resonated with customers and media. Orders grew quickly, and corporate clients signed up for catering, enabling more donated lunches. For example, in its first weeks Eat My Lunch went from about 100 paid lunches per day to 400 per day. They also raised NZ$800,000 through a debt-crowdfunding campaign (“Lunch Bonds”) that allowed investors to get interest, or to donate extra lunches. Around the same time they had delivered their 500,000th donated lunch.
The Drop
Managing volunteers, logistics and scaling kitchen operations was challenging. Ensuring consistent quality while preparing thousands of lunches each day stretched resources. Some school delivery areas struggled, and disruptions (such as during COVID-19 lockdowns) compelled Eat My Lunch to shift to delivering food packs to homes and adjust operations.
The Reset
Eat My Lunch structured operations into shifts and enlisted corporate volunteers. It partnered with schools to streamline delivery and engaged with food safety regulation and compliance. They built a commercial kitchen funded by earlier crowdfunding rounds, and grew volunteer base. Before the commercial kitchen, operations were smaller and more manual.
The Discipline
The social enterprise maintained a clear mission—feeding kids in need—while generating revenue through paid lunches. Transparency and community engagement built trust. The “Buy one, Give one” model is embedded in operations. Volunteers helped prepare “give” lunches, while paid staff handled “buy” lunches. Their messaging emphasised impact, such as how schools reported improvements in students’ concentration, attendance, and wellbeing as lunchtime hunger reduced.
The Climb
Over time, Eat My Lunch delivered over 1.2 million lunches to schoolchildren in low-decile schools across New Zealand. It scaled to serve around 2,000 kids a day across 70-80+ schools in Auckland and Wellington. It also expanded its meals to include home delivery during lockdowns, introduced corporate partnerships, and evolved its services (e.g. “Eat My Dinner”). With this, it attracted more donors/sponsors, raised further capital via crowdfunding and Lunch Bonds, and built stronger infrastructure for food prep, logistics and volunteer management.
Read more
- https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/02-10-2017/eat-my-lunch-the-business-of-doing-good
- https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/small-business/social-enterprises-eat-my-lunch/RGD4L36LQADNNCSI5A52AKBKGY/
- https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/413575/kids-will-get-eat-my-lunch-at-home-during-covid-19-lockdown
- https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/investments/353-eat-my-lunch
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