Eat My Lunch's bond offer reaches target

Michael Meredith of Eat My Lunch shares some of his cooking skills with Moeroa Tavai, 7, (left) and Betsy Fifita, 8, from Mangere Central School in Auckland. Photo / Dean Purcell

Eat My Lunch's crowdlending campaign has met its minimum goal of $500,000 raised to back an expansion into Wellington.

The buy-one give-one social enterprise launched the campaign on PledgeMe in June offering Lunch Bonds to investors to grow the company.

The minimum goal for the company, that gives a packed lunch to a child for every lunch bought, was met yesterday.

Eat My Lunch wanted to expand into Wellington and needed a cash injection to meet that goal.

"Our crowd has come on board to help support our growth, ensuring we can launch in Wellington in term three and improve our underlying technology. If we raise our maximum goal of $1,000,000 there's more work we can do to scale into new cities and towns," founder Lisa King said.

Eat My Lunch has two more days to raise up to a maximum of $1,000,000 through the issue of 'Lunch Bonds' on Pledge Me.

The minimum investment is $1000 and lenders can choose 6 per cent interest and lunch given to a child each month, or no interest and two lunches given to a child per month.

King said the Lunch Bonds was the first transparent crowdlending campaign in New Zealand.

"We wanted to give investors an opportunity to not only support us, but to support kiwi kids in need."

In the last year, over 200,000 lunches have been gifted to children in need, often more than 1,000 a day across 33 schools in Auckland and Hamilton. The campaign closes tomorrow.