Served stale, even delicious food turns out to be a bitter disappointment. More so when it comes to children and adolescents, who crave nutrition and taste. Enter MonkeyBox, a Bengaluru-based startup with a firm resolve to serve good food to school-goers.
“When parents pack food for their school-going children in the morning, the preparation-to-consumption period rids the food of its freshness. Even delectable, healthy food is rendered unappealing at times. Hence, we wanted to introduce a service wherein fresh food can be served to children,” says Sanjay Rao, Co-founder and CEO of MonkeyBox.
With a centralised kitchen in Uttarahalli, the app-based service provider offers freshly prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner to students at their schools.
“It is a subscription-based model, wherein parents can place their orders up to 9 pm, and can cancel them by 7 am. They can choose a five-day, 10-day or 22-day package,” says Rao. The five-day package is priced at Rs 600 for two meals and Rs 750 for all three meals, whereas the 22-day package is priced at Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,000, respectively.
The startup currently works with 700 active subscribers across 28 schools. While it serves students aged from three years up to 18 years, the core of its audience lies in the category of 10-16 years i.e. middle school and high school students. “Our menu is designed by our in-house nutritionists, who ensure that students are given adequate and appropriate nutrition. We offer a variety of dishes in two combinations, which the user can choose from, and dishes are not repeated at least for a period of 21 days,” he says.
The company, which raised a seed round of $500,000 last year, is set to close its Series A round of funding by January 2017. “By now, with our own vans, we have logistics sorted. Going forward, we plan to invest in kitchens, staff and marketing, which we haven’t really invested in by far,” he says.
The company is set to open up two more kitchens in Yelahanka and Sarjapura to cater to its expanding client base. “We plan to have each kitchen serve schools within its 10 km radius. Our current kitchen serves up to 12,000 orders per day and is spread across 5,000 sq feet,” says Rao.
MonkeyBox has tied up with five schools in the city to cater to their entire student population for the coming academic year.
“As of now, we serve food in plastic containers, which we retrieve from students as and when the next day’s meal is delivered. However, plastic poses a bit of a problem, when it comes to serving hot food. Therefore, we have designed our own steel box, which we will launch in February. This will enable us to serve food fresh and also the need to replace containers is avoided for substantial periods as steel is far safer than plastic,” he adds. In its plans for the future, the company is looking to include more dishes and variety on its menu.
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