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ezlunch news

PRESS RELEASE

04 September, 2023

Schools $55,000 better off offering lunches with school payments


In the common struggle for funding for those extra items such as more teacher aides and enticing learning programmes, NZ-based school payments system Kindo has come up with an innovative solution.

 

“We’ve found that schools requesting fees and donations on Kindo collect, on average, $55,000 more when they offer ezlunch (lunch delivery sales) on the platform too,” says Sandra Finlay, founder.

 

Finlay is convinced it’s to do with the 25% of school payments that are made in conjunction with school shop purchases… families are finding it easier to see what’s being requested and act while they’re on Kindo for other purchases.

 

According to Finlay, they’ve been hearing anecdotal evidence, but now the schools using both Kindo Payables (launched in 2019) and their ezlunch service are numerous meaning we have been able to analyse the data accurately. “We’re definitely hearing evidence of increased donations, reduced outstanding debts and money trickling in all the time where it never used to.”

 

Uptake of Kindo Payables has been rapid and schools are reporting positive impacts on both timing and volume of funding coming in, compared to use of other online school payment systems that don’t offer the ‘all-in-one’ shopping with school payments.

 

Ezlunch is highly effective as it’s often a drawcard for families to visit Kindo weekly. Schools also report using Kindo for trip permission forms, uniform, sports registrations and fundraisers can be effective at getting school payments made.

 

“It just makes sense. Giving busy families one place to transact with the school, that’s accessible, clear, and easy to use, and that they have reason to access often, is going to make an impact on school income.” And that, she says, is mission accomplished.

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ezlunch fresh made school lunch delivery system has a new website

A fresh new look for ezlunch

17 September, 2021

We are excited to have launched the new look ezlunch website today. It feels like a fresh start. Something a bit fun while many of our team, schools and families are still locked down at home.

 

More than that, it’s finally retiring the last of our original website, built as we were bursting with excitement to be launching the first healthy online lunch platform in NZ back in 2010. I was so proud of our look then! How things have moved on!

 

Most of our families were on computers at home, using Internet Explorer, and now we have phone apps and Google for everything.

 

My kids have grown with it – from nappies for the youngest to now university for the oldest, they were the inspiration behind ezlunch and it has been an indelible part of all of our lives.

 

We celebrated our first ten schools, our first one hundred, our first million items sold. Now we have Kindo school payments, and ezlunch, with 430 schools across NZ and millions of items sold. No excuse for paper forms and raiding money boxes now!

 

With all that change, it was time to update and a great chance to start showing some personality and fun for our younger school eaters.

 

We hope our little characters and new look bring a sparkle to your day, as we continue delivering fresh-made lunches for many years to come!

 

Sandra. Founder, CEO, Mum.

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Previous posts

PRESS RELEASE

Schools $55,000 better off offering lunches with school payments


In the common struggle for funding for those extra items such as more teacher aides and enticing learning programmes, NZ-based school payments system Kindo has come up with an innovative solution.

 

“We’ve found that schools requesting fees and donations on Kindo collect, on average, $55,000 more when they offer ezlunch (lunch delivery sales) on the platform too,” says Sandra Finlay, founder.

 

Finlay is convinced it’s to do with the 25% of school payments that are made in conjunction with school shop purchases… families are finding it easier to see what’s being requested and act while they’re on Kindo for other purchases.

 

According to Finlay, they’ve been hearing anecdotal evidence, but now the schools using both Kindo Payables (launched in 2019) and their ezlunch service are numerous meaning we have been able to analyse the data accurately. “We’re definitely hearing evidence of increased donations, reduced outstanding debts and money trickling in all the time where it never used to.”

 

Uptake of Kindo Payables has been rapid and schools are reporting positive impacts on both timing and volume of funding coming in, compared to use of other online school payment systems that don’t offer the ‘all-in-one’ shopping with school payments.

 

Ezlunch is highly effective as it’s often a drawcard for families to visit Kindo weekly. Schools also report using Kindo for trip permission forms, uniform, sports registrations and fundraisers can be effective at getting school payments made.

 

“It just makes sense. Giving busy families one place to transact with the school, that’s accessible, clear, and easy to use, and that they have reason to access often, is going to make an impact on school income.” And that, she says, is mission accomplished.

Read more

A fresh new look for ezlunch

We are excited to have launched the new look ezlunch website today. It feels like a fresh start. Something a bit fun while many of our team, schools and families are still locked down at home.

 

More than that, it’s finally retiring the last of our original website, built as we were bursting with excitement to be launching the first healthy online lunch platform in NZ back in 2010. I was so proud of our look then! How things have moved on!

 

Most of our families were on computers at home, using Internet Explorer, and now we have phone apps and Google for everything.

 

My kids have grown with it – from nappies for the youngest to now university for the oldest, they were the inspiration behind ezlunch and it has been an indelible part of all of our lives.

 

We celebrated our first ten schools, our first one hundred, our first million items sold. Now we have Kindo school payments, and ezlunch, with 430 schools across NZ and millions of items sold. No excuse for paper forms and raiding money boxes now!

 

With all that change, it was time to update and a great chance to start showing some personality and fun for our younger school eaters.

 

We hope our little characters and new look bring a sparkle to your day, as we continue delivering fresh-made lunches for many years to come!

 

Sandra. Founder, CEO, Mum.

Read more
ezlunch fresh made school lunch delivery system has a new website

Restaurant and Café Magazine feature two ezlunch providers

School lunches transform foodservice business model 

 

Two Auckland foodservice businesses have built resilience into their business models and boosted revenue by teaming up with online school lunch service ezlunch. The unconventional partnership has allowed both businesses, a sushi shop and a café, to weather the impact of 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns, coming back even more strongly to exceed previous sales. These businesses are two of the 90 food service businesses working with ezlunch across the country – and the company is looking to bring more suppliers on board in 2021.

 

Ezlunch offers schools across the country a wide variety of healthy hot and cold school lunches and after school snacks by matching each school up with local cafés or food suppliers. Parents order online before 9am for meals to be delivered directly to the school before 12pm.  Bob Han at Go Deli café explained that most orders come in between 8am and 8.30am, with parents ordering on their mobiles just before school drop off.

 

Located in Mairangi Bay on Auckland’s North Shore, Go Deli was the first supplier to sign up with ezlunch ten years ago.  Now Bob and his team deliver lunches to 52 schools, making between 1200 - 1500 meals every morning and sending them off on seven delivery routes. “We haven’t sent out a late delivery yet,” said Bob.

 

Since working with ezlunch, turnover has increased by 600%.  Bob has taken on ten members of staff and built a new kitchen for Go Deli Catering run by Maggi Foldi.  The catering business is 90% dedicated to filling ezlunch orders. “We work closely with the Heart Foundation to get accreditation, which means that our menus are assessed each year. This is really important to schools. We also use 100% recyclable packaging.”

 

Additional delivery and packaging costs mean that ezlunch sales have lower margins when compared with walk-in sales in the café, but the revenue is more stable and there’s less food wastage - and ezlunch proved to be a lifeline during last year’s lockdowns.  “Business dropped off when schools were closed but as soon as the children went back, orders picked up immediately and went on to exceed previous sales,” said Bob. “We were surprised, but it shows that parents prioritise their children when it comes to spending.” 

 

Greg Taylor noticed the same uptick in ezlunch sales post-lockdown at his Whangaparaoa sushi business with a massive 50% increase in sales.  Greg set up Sushi4U with his wife in 2013 as a conventional walk-in shop. He started a regular delivery once a week to one local school in 2016 but it was all analogue. “We collected a box with the orders, counted the coins and made sure everything added up – it was very laborious and there was lots of room for error,” said Greg.  When ezlunch took on the school in 2016, they approached Sushi4U to become a supplier five days a week, supported by an online ordering system and helpdesk team. “We were a little apprehensive about the 9am cut off and 12pm delivery but we were proved wrong,” said Greg. 

 

Sushi4U now supplies 11 schools, and the business is 99% ezlunch. In February 2019 Greg made the decision to close the shop to walk-in business and focus on catering. “It’s really busy, high paced work to get lunches out to our schools but we’re now earning more during in the 40-week school year than in the 51-weeks we previously worked.  It’s an early start but we’re finished by 12.30pm.”

 

Monday is a slower day for lunch orders so that allows time for ordering and background work like putting up themed menus for Easter, Halloween or Christmas or promoting any specials on the ezlunch system.  “It’s really easy to use and gives us the flexibility to limit sales of certain items or mark items as sold out if necessary. The system also allows us to limit orders if they’re coming in too quickly. That helps us make sure we meet delivery deadlines – we’ve only had to do that two or three times in six years. Ezlunch is great to work with. If there’s a problem the helpdesk staff are always friendly, they really promote our business. It’s a great arrangement for us.”

 

If you’re interested in talking to ezlunch about becoming an ezlunch supplier, call 09 869 5200

 

 

 

 

 

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Principals Today magazine features ezlunch and Kindo

Contactless payments & trouble-free food

 

Food at school has become a hot topic with the upcoming launch of an expanded national school lunch scheme. Combine that with the challenges of COVID-19 that have pushed schools rapidly online for both payments and refunds and you’ll see why Principals Today decided to take a closer look at New Zealand’s first online ‘one stop shop’ for schools. We track the development of Kindo from an online school lunch solution to a comprehensive school payments system used by 330 schools, handling over 800,000 items per year.

 

12 years ago, Sandra Finlay came up with the concept of a new kind of school software that enabled parents to order healthy school lunches by connecting schools to fresh food suppliers. ezlunch launched in 2010 and subsequent investment in development saw the software become increasingly intuitive and capable of simplifying other school transactions. In consultation with schools, the system underpinning ezlunch was launched as Kindo in 2013.

 

Kindo offers a cost-effective way for schools to collect donations and attendance dues, sell uniforms and stationery, manage school trip and camp payments, sports subscriptions, permission forms, and fundraisers. Kindo was the first system to integrate with eTAP and now Edge, Linc-ed Hero and Kamar, delivering a ‘single source of truth’ to keep student details in sync while reducing payment administration. 

 

Vauxhall School located on Auckland’s North Shore and Paparoa Street School on the outskirts of Christchurch have followed different paths to the same decision, taking all school payments online using Kindo. Vauxhall School has 273 students on the roll and has been offering ezlunch to students twice a week for eight years. The primary is a feeder school for nearby Belmont Intermediate and Takapuna Grammar, and all three schools use the Kindo platform for student payments. Community familiarity with the system made it easy for Vauxhall School to expand beyond ezlunch to introduce Kindo in late 2019. 

 

Shannon McNaughton is both school administrator and parent, so experiences Kindo from both sides of the fence.  “It’s awesome, so easy. Before we started using Kindo for student payments, we had to print off EFTPOS receipts to be photocopied, coded, and filed.  We were using the finance component from our current Student Management System and every time someone paid, I had to go into each item manually. 

 

“Kindo has done away with all that – it’s a big time saving.  With Kindo Payables, all items are coded from the start, reports are summarised, and all we have to do is input the totals into Xero.”

 

On ezlunch days, Shannon gets a list of orders and the lunches arrive, labelled and ready to distribute.  “We also use Kindo to run regular fundraisers like Jesters Pie days,” she explains. “It takes me less than five minutes to set up an event on Kindo and send out a link in our newsletter – over 80% of students participated last term with zero parent help required.”

 

When asked what she would say to other schools, Shannon McNaughton does not hesitate: “Just get it – from a paperwork and admin perspective Kindo takes away all the pressure.”

 

Kindo and ezlunch were introduced at Paparoa Street School at the beginning of 2020.  With no prior knowledge of either service, the school invested time to bring the PTA, office staff, Accounts and Principal, Pene Abbie, together for an initial meeting.  The school was already using a local lunch provider and wanted to take everything into a single system, so Kindo quickly adopted Little Lunches as an ezlunch supplier. 

 

PTA Chairperson, Niki Franklin took on school lunches as part of her role this year and directly manages ezlunch.  “ezlunch is very flexible and Kindo offers lots of other opportunities for the PTA to set up ticket sales and fundraisers,” she said. “We’re excited by the simplicity. We ran a free sausage sizzle with registrations on Kindo to get parents up and running on the system.  It all worked very well.

 

“No-one has cash anymore so it’s great to be able to operate in a way that suits our community. The best thing about Kindo is the ease of adding items to sell, whether it’s a fundraising event or a product.”

 

Camille Lamond, office administrator at Paparoa Primary found Kindo ‘relatively straightforward’: “I was a little nervous at first, but we’ve already got most of our parents using Kindo. Kindo Payables is easy. You can send out invoice items to an individual class or year and set up groups for particular payments like sports team transport.  It has really cut down the fiddly admin side of my work.”  With her newly discovered free time, Camille has been able to embark on some personal development and is enjoying working in new areas. 

 

Leaving the last word to the two Principals, Pene Abbie, Principal at Paparoa Street Primary said the most important benefit has been parents’ ease of access to payments: “The clear win for us has been our parents’ ability to obtain the things they need for their children within the school environment and the individualisation enabled by Kindo.  We saw an initial impact on the collection of donations and other payments — COVID has changed that but the potential is definitely there.”

 

Gary Lawrence from Vauxhall School commented: “We’re pleased that we’ve gone down the path of having all payments and fees in one place. Kindo makes it easy to raise funds through community events — this means we can reinvest those funds back into the classroom, providing more learning assistant hours.”

 

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