The Lunch Lady founder Ruthie Burd shares the journey of her storied career and how she’s bringing nutritious food to kids across the country
By Alya Somar
As founder of The Lunch Lady, Ruthie Burd’s daily life now revolves around food and nutrition for Canadians across the country. However, her early years couldn’t have been more different.
Burd’s upbringing took place in Oshawa, Ontario. When she was 13 years old, Burd’s mother passed away, and from then on, she was raised solely by her father. Neither she nor her father were enthusiastic about cooking. Considering how many cans of Dinty Moore Beef Stew they shared together during mealtimes, she never would have imagined herself running a successful business in the food service industry. Regardless, they managed, and Burd credits her father’s lessons on life, ethics, and social responsibility for much of how she runs her business today.
The business, before the business
Before launching The Lunch Lady in 1993, Burd ran a window blinds company in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in the 1980s. After learning how to build blinds in Vaughn, Ontario, she moved to Jamaica with her then spouse and their child, starting a light-manufacturing company from the ground up. There, she grew a successful business, and she remembers that time fondly.
A big part of her experience in Jamaica was learning how to cultivate a welcoming workplace environment. Simple additions like morning coffee and tea and time for her employees to socialize before work helped foster an environment where staff were happy, felt appreciated, and were productive. Later, after returning to Canada, she would recreate this format.
“I loved the workplace culture we created together. I realized that work is more than a job,” Burd shares. “It was managing that relationship between employer and employee, [that] I really enjoyed.”
Flexible work, for everyone
Upon returning to North York in Toronto, Burd remarried and had two more children, one of whom was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. At the time, the therapies their son needed were usually scheduled during working hours, so Burd became a stay-at-home parent. Eventually, she and her husband decided that it would be best financially and personally for her to re-enter the workforce—though in a way more flexible than traditional.
Burd adds that she needed to be more than her son’s caregiver if she wanted to be there for her family, in a healthy way. “I had a husband, an older son, a child with special needs, and a baby—they were all going to need a piece of me, and I certainly needed a piece of me too!”
She was determined to run her own business again, but on her own terms. In brainstorming to find a new business idea, Burd came across an article about a gentleman in New York City who made sandwiches in the morning and delivered them to office workers during lunch. Could she apply this to school lunches? With no background in nutrition and not much of an interest in the culinary arts, she wasn’t sure if following that business model was the right call for her, but she did it anyways; in 1993, Burd officially launched The Lunch Lady in North York, Toronto.
“It’s really an accidental business story,” she laughs. “I didn’t start it [because of a] love of cooking, serving children, nutrition, or even an interest in school food. But I thought it was an idea that just might work. Parents could get a break from the chore of packing school lunches and I could have my afternoons free for my son’s therapies.”
Over thirty years of evolution
It took two long, frustrating years for The Lunch Lady to be accepted by the first school. Her service was seen as both a potential threat to pizza lunch fundraising efforts and as generally unnecessary, since parents had been long making their own children’s lunches. But, once accepted, the service took off, introducing a whole new concept to Canadian elementary schools—individually labelled and packaged hot meals delivered to kids at school.
During the early years, Burd quickly learned that it would be impossible to please every potential customer while trying to create a sustainable business model. For some parents, the meals were not considered healthy enough, while others were unhappy with the company’s decision to provide whole wheat buns. She chose to focus her attention on the parents who were looking for convenience, wholesome menus and food their kids would enjoy. Instead of trying to cast too wide a net, she focused on creating a service that parents could trust, added options for kids with allergies, sensitivities, and cultural food needs, and created a delivery model that did not make extra work for schools. This decision has made all the difference.
By 1999, The Lunch Lady, now a more established brand, was ready to expand. Burd saw franchising as a way to share a good business idea with other women—as her Dad used to tell her, “Money works best when everybody has some.” Always keen to collaborate, she welcomed a diverse group of franchisees, and business partners as needed, to help her achieve her vision and started franchising across Ontario—and later, three more Canadian provinces.
Since its founding, The Lunch Lady has earned awards for diversity, entrepreneurship, and business excellence, survived the COVID-19 pandemic, and is not slowing down any time soon. Beyond schools, they now serve childcares, homeless shelters, seniors, and work with school boards to deliver universal meal and snack programs.
Burd has also been invited to share her experience and participate in various national school food initiatives and contribute to school food guidelines like PPM150 in Ontario.
Dishing up the dream
As an online school food provider, Burd was aware that her program was not affordable for everyone, and she started looking for solutions. In 2018, she founded The Lunch Lady Foundation, a registered Canadian charity, to trial different types of universal school meal programs and encourage more collaboration between private caterers and not-for-profit organizations to deliver them. She says she’s encouraged by the advent of a National School Food program in Canada but realizes there is a lot more to be done.
After decades of being at the helm of the Lunch Lady, she believes it is better to lead with an open mind and give others the opportunity to shine, problem-solve, and succeed. Taking a page from her father’s book of lessons, Burd believes it is always good to hear as many perspectives as possible before coming up with a solution, but insists that there must be an actionable outcome or it is all just talk. While resolution is sometimes messy, she reflects, “Life is just like a pearl—without that irritating grain of sand, there can be no pearl, Discomfort spurs you to find better solutions.”
Serving a diverse clientele in multiple communities and provinces has been challenging, but it is important to welcome feedback and strive daily to make things better, she says, always believing that improvement is possible.
As The Lunch Lady continues to grow, this belief drives Burd and the team forward to realize the company’s mission.
“All kids should have access to good food, regardless of means,” says Burd. “These are not just words. We truly care about every community and customer we are privileged to serve. The Lunch Lady is more than a business—it’s a promise and a commitment.”
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