Local mom Kelly Lester created EasyLunchboxes after struggling to find easy ways to pack healthy lunches for her daughters. PHOTO BY KEVIN MCINTYRE PHOTOGRAPHY
With her company, EasyLunchboxes (easylunchboxes.com), L.A. mompreneur Kelly Lester helps take the headache out of school-lunch prep. Created out of Lester’s own need to prepare lunches quickly, these containers were designed to hold healthy, portion-controlled meals for kids on the go.
“I love to eat and feed my family healthy food, but I don’t like spending time in the kitchen,” Lester says. Her sentiment rings true for busy people and kitchen phobics alike. It became a daily challenge for this mom trying to prepare lunches for three school-age girls, all with different food requests. “There was always a wide variety of containers for each girl, and nothing fit into their bags or lunch boxes,” says Lester. Her solution: one container with three different-sized compartments.
“I created my first mold and sample in the summer of 2009,” Lester says. The first prototype she dug up was a lucky dollar-store find, but the plastic broke after just a few uses. Undaunted, Lester set out to develop her own trademark product. She figured if she were this obsessed with finding a solution for her kids’ lunches, there must be others out there looking, too. Her hunch paid off, and her brand took off. The containers were available via her website by November 2009. They launched on Amazon.com in the spring of 2011. “I did not sell them on the shelves of any retail stores until the special Target special back-to-school buy in 2017,” she says.
Her containers filled a niche that didn’t exist on the market until EasyLunchboxes appeared. Seeing more such products on the market now, Lester says, is a testament to her company’s success. She has gone on to create an even more popular counterpart with her new more compact Snackboxes.
EasyLunchboxes have become a way of life for many families, Lester says. “It’s a good product for anyone who eats,” she says.
