You might call Monica Tomasso the Lunch Lady, but that would be a bit of a misnomer.
True, she does make her living serving lunches to schoolchildren. But the 33-year-old entrepreneur is hardly the type to slop mystery meat on lunch trays with a scowl and a hairnet.
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Tomasso is the founder of Health E-Lunch Kids, which delivers healthy lunches to students at about 45 schools in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. For $4.99, parents can know their children are eating something nutritious without having to find time to pack the lunches themselves, Tomasso said.
The program is in its second year, serving about 400 customers, according to Tomasso.
The company signs up a particular school for the program — it mostly serves private and charter schools — which guarantees they can deliver to the institution. Parents then have a chance to order between one and five lunches per week off the company Web site. The firm also has pickup locations to serve parents whose schools don’t participate.
The children might get baked chicken nuggets, turkey rolls or whole grain, low-fat mozzarella pizza bagels. Parents choose the side dishes, from zucchini sticks to the occasional bag of Sun Chips. Each lunch contains a small treat, like an organic cookie.
“We’re really trying to teach kids portion control,” Tomasso said.
Tomasso suffered from childhood obesity; she also spent 12 years at Exxon Mobil listening to parents complain about not having time to pack lunches — the combination inspired the idea. She says she hopes to expand the firm into New Jersey, Pennsylvania and North Carolina next year.
Some outlets in California such as Brown Bag Naturals have provided similar services to Health E-Lunch Kids.
The business has a concept — catering to busy lifestyles — similar to food-assembly enterprises such as Let’s Dish and Dream Dinners, which allow parents or busy adults to prepare a month’s worth of meals at one time, and have seen rapid growth.
“In this particular case, it’s all about convenience,” said Herb Sorensen, global scientific director of Shopper Insights for TNS North America. Sorenson noted that touting the healthy benefits of the product may appeal to parents who might feel guilty about not investing the time themselves to make lunches.
