Growing out of the crisis of the pandemic, Halifax-based Food for Thought Software Solutions, a company that provides stigma-free school meals to kids in need, is preparing to raise funds to boost growth both nationally and internationally.

Started by sisters Melissa and Shandra MacMaster, Food for Thought has created software that allows schoolchildren and parents to order a healthy meal online from a restaurant and either pay for it or not, depending on their circumstances. Regardless of payment, the meals are delivered to schoolchildren in identical boxes.

The company has already arranged the delivery of 350,000 lunches in Nova Scotia and P.E.I., putting $2 million into the hands of local restaurants. On average, about 40 percent of meals are not paid for, and the anonymity of the program is key, said Melissa, a mother of three, in an interview.

“Reducing food stigma is our core value,” she said. “We never want children to feel that they’re getting a special lunch or are on this program because their parents can’t afford it. Twenty lunches can be delivered to the same classroom and every one of them is in an identical box.”

Food insecurity is a huge problem, she said, but by creating software that handles the logistics of meal ordering, preparation and delivery, they are providing a simple solution.

“Of the 5 million children in school in Canada, 1.2 million come from food insecure homes. They could go to school without breakfast or a packed lunch or be reliant on food banks or other non-profit programs,” she said. “Canada is the only G7 country without a national food program. We think we have found a way to find a solution for children at school.”

The company began when the entrepreneurial sisters -- Melissa runs music licensing business 902HipHop and Shandra runs Student Taxi and Master Driver School in Antigonish -- took part in a pilot program with the province of Nova Scotia to continue to provide meals to kids in need while they were at home during the pandemic. 

“It was a really crazy time last March and the only thought was that we have thousands of children that depend on school meals so let’s get them to the children,” Melissa said.

“In the pilot with Nova Scotia, we managed the whole program for two months. We took orders, got volunteers to deliver food, we onboarded families and restaurants and technical support. We found what worked.

As the program was closing, the sisters started having conversations with non-profits to see what they were doing to continue providing meals. No solution seemed sustainable because solutions required too much manual work.

“We thought, what if we had a software that did this, this and this, and how much time would it save? We were also talking to the province of P.E.I. that was mandated to launch a provincial Healthy School Food program, and they needed software.”

The sisters decided to create a software solution. They found a developer, Brian McNeil, and tested their initial product on P.E.I. For two women who had never run a tech venture before it was a big step, but Melissa said the key was their existing mindset.

“For entrepreneurs, it’s innate -- you want to figure out the solution to a problem,” she said. “We had an 'aha moment', that gut realization that no one has disrupted this industry before, no one has solved food insecurity.”

To date, the sisters have generated revenue by licensing the software. In October, they won the Spark innovation contest and $30,000 dollars. They recently bagged another $25,000 at a Volta Cohort Pitching Contest – money which will be used to create an app. Raising big money is now top of mind.

“We’re looking at raising a million dollars,” Melissa said. “The majority will be used to bring on another developer, and we need to grow our team as we plan to scale nationally.”

The company has already been approached by potential investors, she said.

“It’s important to have females playing in this space and growing amazing companies in Atlantic Canada,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of interest, lots of meetings with angel and venture capitalists. We will be able to decide who we want to bring to the table.”

The plan is to scale within the region over the next few months. She said that, to their knowledge, they are the first to market with software that automates the logistics and enables thousands of children to receive meals daily.

Melissa said the company will only need a few big clients to acquire many users: Ontario alone, is home to 2 million children.

“Our goal is to bring on Atlantic Canada then, once we have a user base of around 350,000 children on the platform for a year, we will take on a bigger province,” she said.