Lunchbox lads pocket $3000 for idea
A lunch delivery service has earned two flatmates the top gong at a Unitec Gradfest awards ceremony.
Andrew Greatex and Tyler Peacock from New Lynn were handed $3000 in enterprise funding at the Mt Albert campus on November 27.
Their business idea, Lunchbox, allows customers to log-in to a website or app, order from a range of listed restaurants and have their pre-paid dish delivered piping hot to their desk on the back of an electric trike.
The meal packaging is being created from 100 per cent biodegradable compressed sugar cane.
Greatex and Peacock’s idea came about through the Enterprise Challenge, a pilot programme designed to draw out entrepreneurial spirit across a community of staff, students and selected members of the public.
‘‘A year ago Tyler told me about an idea for a lunch delivery service to deliver office workers great meals to their desks – all credit to him – and we started work on it while I did my second year of a bachelor of business in operations management,’’ Greatex, 24, says.
Peacock, 27, is the marketer and digital designer of the two.
Through the Mt Albert Campus Challenge their idea was subjected to a workshop and Dragon’s Denstyle development and judging process.
Runner-up Jonathan Hickman, pocketed $2000 towards his digital mealtime planning idea, My Cookbuild.
The 34-year-old Te Atatu father and social practice masters student had become heartily sick of hearing himself and his wife utter the uninspired phrase: dinner tonight?’’
Hickman imagined a website and mobile app with easy recipes you can drag and drop into a meal planner, work out the cost of the meal and share the recipe with friends.
If supermarkets get on board, members could see where to go on
‘‘So what’s for any given day to buy listed ingredients at the best prices, he says.
‘‘This model also gets the kids involved. If they’ve been part of the planning of the meal, which is fun, they are more likely to eat it,’’ Hickman says.
Mt Roskill’s Joshua Perese, 22, was second runnerup. He’s been mad about waka ama since he was 12 years old.
As a boatbuilding student he never dreamed he’d get to test a long-held business idea while he was completing the trade course. But through some business analysis, Perese discovered he could design and build boats in New Zealand for almost half the price he was spending to bring them in from Tahiti. The vessels are designed to be more buoyant than market models, therefore able to carry heavier paddlers.
He earned $1000 through the competition.