Having experienced the wonders of boarding school life, school friends Lewis and Tarka both grew up understanding the huge role “Tuck” plays within boarding school culture. That’s why Boarding Bites was born – to not only help improve snacking habits while away from home, but to make it easy and convenient for people all around the world to their child a midweek surprise.

We catch up with them both to find out how it all started.

---

Tell us a bit about you
We met each other when starting at Bryanston School in 2012. We both left in 2017 after a wonderful experience and decided to go travelling together. Since our gap year Lewis has worked at a tech startup called BUMP in London and Tarka has started a BA in Product and Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins.

How did Boarding Bites come about?
Both of us have always had a strong passion for entrepreneurship. While at school we were both very successful at reselling clothing on Depop. Tarka was focussed on streetwear and Lewis on second hand vintage clothing. We both made it to the top 200 global accounts from millions of users, which was a fantastic achievement!

From experiencing the wonders of boarding school life, we both grew up understanding the importance  ‘TUCK’ plays in boarding school culture. The idea was first suggested when grabbing a drink together in London after work one day.

Boarding Bites was created not only to educate and improve snacking habits for students while away from home, but to make it fun, easy and accessible for parents all round the world to send their child a midweek surprise!

What’s been your biggest challenge?
One of our USPs is:  “No Faff, Just Relax! We will only deliver your child’s box during their term time.”

What does this mean? After signing up your child to one of our plans, there is no need to worry about pausing or cancelling their boxes during school holidays! It also means whenever you order a box for your child (or someone else’s) you can always be assured that it will only ever be sent when they are at school!

This has been very complicated to implement into our website, it has taken months of work and dedication from the team to get right. It has also been a big challenge juggling our normal life and work commitments while starting a business from scratch.

How has the company changed since you launched?
We have seen a huge increase in happy customers from both students and parents! We are now supplying boxes to over 50 boarding schools across the UK!

The desire for bigger boxes grew, so we have recently launched the TUCK & TRUNK boxes which are proving very popular.

What advice do you have for others wanting to set up their own business?
“JUST DO IT” – The famous slogan from Nike is a perfect representation of our thoughts on how to start your own business!

If you have an idea, do your research, look at the competitors and give it a go! Don’t be afraid of not knowing much about business, you learn so much as you go along.

What next?
We are looking at sending boxes to Universities and to people working from home.

Do you have a motto for life?
Carpe Diem – Seize the Day!

---

Why not surprise your child with a mid-week tuck box sent directly to their school?  Boarding Bites are offering 50% off your first regular box