(Image via UC Davis)
Over the past few years the tech industry has seen an explosion of on-demand food services like Blue Apron and HelloFresh, which offer a customizable and healthy alternative to takeout.
Recently, Bri James and Dr. Schery Mitchell-James, a mother-daughter team from San Francisco decided to use this same business model to make packing school lunches easier.
Before launching the project, James served as the director of strategic partnerships for a now-shuttered Bay area startup. Dr. Mitchell-James boasts a 36-year-long career as a pediatrician. The two women combined their skills to create Scrumpt, an on-demand school lunch delivery service that takes nutrition into account.
To get started, parents log into the Scrumpt website, enter in their payment information, and then choose from this wide variety of products in order to create their own, personalized lunch kits. Each kit contains three or five pre-portioned lunches which include a main dish, 1 or 2 sides, and a “worthwhile” treat, like a whole grain chocolate graham cracker or organic fruit chips, as well as a napkin and utensils.
You can also find gluten-free, lactose-free, or nut-free items, given your preferences.
These non-perishable or semi-perishable items like hummus, almond butter, cheddar crackers, granola, and pasta, are then augmented by items parents likely already buy – like fruits and veggies. A provided shopping list helps you round out your packed lunches, which you assemble at home or teach your child to do.
Three lunches cost $19 per week while 5 lunches are $24.
Scrumpt is available all over the country, but, for now, only customers in San Francisco can received perishables. The project recently began beta testing the delivery of perishable items in San Francisco this week.