A new food box delivery business in Northumberland is enjoying its first taste of success as it signs up local producers in its bid to provide cheap but nutritious family meals.
EezyFood in Cramlington launched in spring with the aim of offering ingredients and recipes which can create meals from as little as 89p per portion.
And now it has teamed up with local suppliers on its mission to ensure they are the very best quality too.
Graeme Stewart and Chris Dodds, who are behind the EezyFood venture, say they had been inspired by footballer Marcus Rashford’s high-profile lockdown campaign to provide free school meals for children and fight food poverty.
The old school pals came up with a food box idea which they say is a far cheaper alternative to similar services.
Their focus on healthy and top-quality food struck a chord with local suppliers and now Nicholson’s Butchers in Whitley Bay and Hillheads Farm Shop in Killingworth are involved in the scheme too, with the former providing all the company's meat and the latter its fruit and vegetables.
Graeme said: "The aim of the company is to make quality food more affordable and accessible to all families, regardless of their budgets.
"All of our produce is restaurant quality."
And he claimed it is "fantastic value", adding that other similar services range from £2.50 to £5 a portion.
"As far as we are aware, there are no other local businesses offering similar," he said.
Customers can pick from various food box options - covering breakfast, lunch and evening meal for between one and four people - as well as a 'complete box', costing £75 for four which works out as 89p per meal each, and a create-your-own alternative.
"None of our competition offer breakfast or lunch recipe boxes," says Graeme.
Each box comes with a recipe bag containing the required ingredients for the meal of choice, up to a maximum of 21 recipe bags, along with thermal pouches - made from recycled jeans - which can keep the produce chilled for up to 48 hours.
Environmental concerns are also behind their decision to issue the recipe cards digitally, which Graeme says also means the printing saving is passed on to the customer.
The company next plans to take on four staff through the Government's Kickstart employment programme.
Initially Graeme and Chris's idea had been to run a subscription service but this was scrapped on the basis that customers might forget to cancel any orders they did not need.
To order a food box see here and for the create-your-own option see here.
