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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Nomsly

Yumble Raises $7M for Kids Meal Delivery Service

Yumble, the startup that ships kids meals directly to your door, announced today that it has closed a $7 million Series A round of funding led by Sonoma Brands. This brings the total amount raised by the company to $8.5 million.

As we wrote about Yumble a little more than a year ago:

“With its kid-friendly prepared meal kit service, Yumble is targeting busy parents who still want to feed their kids nutritious lunches and dinners, but may lack the time to do so every day of the week.

One way Yumble does this is by sending meals that are already cooked, so all you have to do is re-heat them. Portions are kid appropriate, and menu items include Pretzel Chicken (with green beans and brown rice), Egg ‘Wich (with sweet potato fries), and Caprese Wheel (with carrots and grapes). They also offer snacks as well as options such as gluten free or vegetarian.”

Though the specific food items we listed then are no longer available, the same types of playful, healthy meals remain with the current menu options. After a special introductory rate, pricing is just under $50 for 6 meals per week for one kid, roughly $90 for 12 meals for 1 – 2 kids, and about $168 for 24 meals for 2 -3 kids. Right now, Yumble is only available on the East Coast.

According to the funding announcement, Yumble will use this new money to invest in marketing, hire people and expand nationally.

Yumble isn’t technically a “meal kit” as we typically define them around here since there isn’t anything to cook in a Yumble box. That ready-to-go aspect — and the company’s specific focus on kids — could be what helped them raise new money in a turbulent time for meal kits. Meal kits by mail are giving way to meal kits in the supermarket aisle, convenience store, office fridge and even restaurant drive-through window.

But opening up new sales channels is where Sonoma Brands as a lead investor could make an even bigger impact for Yumble. Sonoma’s portfolio of brands includes KRAVE jerky, Guayaki yerba mate beverages, and Dang foods. Yumble could leverage that experience to get into retail and open up more direct sales.

Nomsly Looks to Kickstart its Kids Lunch Delivery Expansion

Nomsly is out to get your lunch money… in the healthiest way possible. The Boston-based startup offers delivery of healthy kids lunches to your door, and has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to help it expand into new geographic locations on the East Coast.

The company is looking to take the hassle out of preparing kids lunches every day without sacrificing quality for convenience (i.e. no prepackaged, processed junk). For $35 a week, Nomsly will send you five prepared, healthy lunches. All meals are cold, so they can be stored in the fridge for a week and packed into lunchboxes with no further preparation needed.

Keeping things cold is actually important for Nomsly. According to Co-Founder Christopher Buck, Nomsly lunches stay fresher longer because the entire process is refrigerated. Food arrives cold, is prepared cold and shipped cold. This way, when your package arrives on Saturday, all the lunches will stay fresh throughout the week. The company even uses a Vitamin C and Calcium wash on the fruits and veggies to keep them from turning brown.

Nomsly is currently bootstrapped with funding from friends and family. Just Buck and Co-Founder Andrew Macauly are full-time with the company, with six other contractors providing additional help. The company currently only serves the Boston area, and wouldn’t reveal any customer numbers.

Nomsly just launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and raise $30,000, the proceeds of which will go towards equipment and materials that would allow the company to expand into New York and Philadelphia.

Which is a bummer for this blogger as it’s another kid meal kit that doesn’t service my area. And I really like the idea of Nomsly. Like Yumble, Nomsly is differentiating itself in the meal delivery space by focusing only on kids. What I really think is smart on Nomsly’s part is to focus even further by providing only lunches, and even further, only cold lunches.

First, grabbing a prepared, balanced meal out of the fridge and throwing it in my son’s backpack would save me lots of time in the morning. At $7 a meal, that’s roughly twice what I pay for a school lunch, but it’s for menu items like grilled chicken and rice with peas and plums, turkey wraps and other fare that seem better than cafeteria tater tots. Plus, it beats the repetition of me slapping together a PB&J everyday.

Buck said the company had looked at going the VC route, but wanted to go with Kickstarter because it was interested in fostering more of an engaged community that was actively participating in their mission. This is admirable, but it leaves open the opportunity for other, better funded companies to come in and replicate what Nomsly is doing on a larger scale.

And if that’s the case, there’s a chance I’ll never get to hand Nomsly my lunch money.