PECOFREE

PECOFREE Inc., established in February 2021, operates a platform that connects schools and corporate clients with local meal providers to address the challenges in the lunch and school meal market. The company was founded by CEO Tatsuo Kawanami, whose extensive background in the industrial catering industry, including roles as a factory manager and director, provided him with firsthand insight into the sector's operational issues. This experience was pivotal in shaping the company's mission to tackle problems such as the financial unsustainability of school cafeterias, the burden on working parents to prepare daily lunches, and the logistical inefficiencies faced by meal providers.

The firm's core offering is the PECOFREE mobile application, a food delivery service that allows students and employees to order lunches in advance. The platform is primarily a B2B2C model, where the service is introduced at an institutional level—such as schools, after-school clubs, and offices—at no initial cost. Users, typically students or employees, can then use the app, which integrates with the LINE messaging application, to select from a daily variety of meals curated by nutritionists. Parents or users pre-load funds into their accounts, and children can independently place orders within that budget, a system for which PECOFREE has secured a patent. Revenue is generated by facilitating transactions between users and the meal catering companies. This model creates a new, digitized market for school lunches, particularly for high schools, which often lack mandatory meal programs.

The service digitizes the entire ordering process, eliminating the need for manual tallying and reducing food waste by providing caterers with precise order volumes in advance. For educational institutions and companies, it offers a way to provide meal options without the overhead of running a full-scale cafeteria. For local meal providers, it opens up access to a previously untapped market of high school students and other institutional clients, contributing to regional economic activity. Since its service launch in April 2021, the company reports that over 500 facilities have adopted the platform, and it has achieved significant growth, with a reported 666% year-over-year increase in gross merchandise value. The company has successfully raised a total of 320 million JPY through multiple funding rounds, including a Series A, to fuel its nationwide expansion, system development, and marketing efforts.

Keywords: school lunch delivery, corporate lunch service, food-tech platform, meal subscription, mobile order, B2B2C food service, school meal solutions, lunch pre-order system, nutritionist-supervised meals, industrial catering DX, regional revitalization, parental burden reduction, student food service, office food delivery, Fukuoka startup, LINE mini-app, digital food platform, meal service logistics, school cafeteria alternative, community-based meal service, patented payment system