Samantha London has always had a passion for food, cooking, baking and making a fun and nutritious lunchbox for her young children. As a single mum of two, she wanted to build a community where parents can find cute lunchboxes and accessories and talk all things lunch. After a lot of research, she launched Noonys, providing families with high quality, sturdy products that have been tested by her own children, in colours and styles that kids will love. Here Samantha talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the passion behind Noonys, how she balances work and family time, and the pros and cons of running her own business.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
Becoming a solo mum, I resigned from my corporate Project Manager job to make sure I had the time needed for the kids and I to adjust to our new normal. We spent a few months together over summer 2022 to enjoy the sun, beach and time together and after a few months of thinking about what would be next for me, I decided that I wanted to stay available to the kids and started thinking about what that could look like – and here we are now with Noonys – for me, my love of food combined with having kids of my own made me want to do something that I was passionate about and also provided really awesome products I could use for my own kids. A friend suggested I start a lunchbox business and while chatting about names, Noonys came up and that stuck and here we are!
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I started with looking at what products I wanted to make available. I did a lot of research and spent a lot of time learning how to work Instagram, haha (reels and stories had to become an everyday part of my life), and I took the plunge and built my own website which, trust me, took many days and weeks to get working just right. I started with two styles of lunchbox, food cutters, food picks and kid safety knives and worked from a desk in my living room with stock in boxes stacked as nicely as boxes can stack against the living room wall. Noonys is almost a year old and that’s how I started out and worked for quite some time. Eventually, I had to get stock out of my living room and it moved to a corner of my garage, and now I have just taken the plunge and got a dedicated space at home for my office and stock to let it have a space of its own and have a little more room to build.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Honestly, showing up on social media every day has been a game changer as it has let people get to know me as a person and know who they are buying from. Also, deciding to look at having stores stock Noonys has been a game changer too. This is something I have worked on this year and we are now in over 10 stores within New Zealand, making it easier for customers to buy Noonys products via our website or a local store.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
I try my best. Like everything, as long as you try you can succeed.
I set boundaries to make sure my work doesn’t take over. I work school hours a few days a week while my kids are at school and my daughter is at kindy (she doesn’t go full time). Then I will work with the kids at home occasionally, but I have a set time limit if I work with kids at home with me. I find working when the kids are at school/kindy and working at night or on the weekends my kids are away at their dad’s works well for me.
