Kristina Komlosiova is embarking on a mission to delivering healthy lunches to office desks all over London every day.
Date: 26 February 2016
Kristina Komlosiova [second right in photo], a MA International Events Management alumna, started her business in 2015 with business partner Stephanie Johnson.
Kristina and Stephanie worked with London Met’s business incubator, Accelerator, to develop their idea into a viable, fully functioning business. Accelerator offers legal and financial advice which Kristina says was extremely helpful for Pollen and Grace.
Pollen and Grace was based in Old Street as part of a two week pop up shop trial. Kristina is now pushing the company’s move into the retail market.
“Being gluten, wheat and dairy intolerant, Steph realised there was a gap in the market which inspired her to create Pollen and Grace: a healthy food delivery service covering most of the common food allergies and catering to the busy people of London,” Kristina says.
“She [Stephanie Johnson, third right in photo] started the company back in March 2015 doing purely lunch deliveries to offices in west and south west of London. I joined her in September [after travelling for six months] and since then the company has grown London-wide. We have realised our biggest potential lies in retail and the grab-and-go food sector so that’s exactly where we are heading now.”
Although Pollen and Grace do not currently have a shop, their range is stocked in shops across London. “We have just started supplying to Planet Organic,” says Kristina.
“We will have a stand at the London Coffee Festival in April and we are thinking of having another pop-up shop in a different location at the beginning of summer.”
A day in the life of Pollen and Grace
Pollen and Grace accept orders until 10am in order to meet their same day delivery target. Once all the orders are in, Kristina communicates a route to all drivers to ensure all orders are delivered by 1pm.
“This part of my job is probably the trickiest of all because traffic in London can be a complete nightmare,” says the young business woman.
“I think the key is to be organised and plan the delivery routes properly.”
All orders are made on the same day to ensure every meal is fresh. Deliveries start at 11am to reach desks across London.
What the future holds
Kristina aspires to have a chain of ‘grab-and-go’ outlets in correspondence with the increasing desk-lunch trend. Ideally, she would like to have a series of outlets across the UK, and possibly even overseas. However, Kristina “needs to conquer London first!”
