Maggie Murray: Chaos to Calm

Maggie grew up around school bags. Her parents ran a business selling backpacks that, by her estimate, began 35 to 40 years ago, and the back-to-school period was the busiest stretch of the year. Over time, that gave the family a clear sense of which products sold well, what parents needed to get their children to school, and where the options on the market fell short.

About five or six years ago, Maggie and her sister bought the business from their parents. At that stage it sold other companies' products, bought in from wholesalers. Both sisters are designers, and that would shape what came next.

After taking over, the sisters knew they wanted to move the business online so it could reach a global market. That meant getting into e-commerce, and it is where Spixal lives today. The brand has no physical shopfront.

The name Spixal goes back further than the launch. The sisters came up with it years earlier and even made and sold a run of their own backpacks under it before the idea paused. When they decided to revisit it properly, the goal was to see how far they could take it. Spixal launched in November 2025.

Maggie describes the shift from selling other brands to selling their own as one of the most exciting parts of the journey. When the products finally landed and went out to customers, the good feedback made all the work it took to get there feel worthwhile.

Spixal grew out of a problem the family had watched play out over many back-to-school seasons. Parents would buy a lunch bag, then struggle to find a lunch box that actually fit inside it. Backpacks, lunch bags, and lunchware were sold as separate items, with little thought given to how they worked together.

"We took what wasn't working and created something to work altogether."

The result is a system. Each lunch box is sized for its lunch bag, and each lunch bag is sized for the backpack. Because the sisters design the products themselves and work through the details with their manufacturers, they can check that every piece fits with the next. Everything is designed to match, too, so a child's kit looks like a set.

Fit was only part of the brief. When the sisters designed the lunchware, Maggie says they focused on making it leakproof and easy for children to open. The aim was a smooth experience from the moment a parent packs it in the morning to the moment a child sits down to eat at school.

That independence matters to Maggie. If a child can't open their own lunch box, she says, it defeats the purpose. Cleaning was another priority. Lunch boxes often come home with half-eaten food inside, so every piece needs to be easy to wash at the end of the day.

To bring the designs to life, Maggie and her sister traveled to the Canton Fair, a large international trade fair, to meet manufacturers. They visited factories and spoke with suppliers in person, and Maggie says that made the whole process far more enjoyable.

It also solved a problem. The sisters had first tried working with manufacturers over email and WhatsApp, and it wasn't landing.

"We felt they couldn't see our vision. Like, we had this vision and it's like they weren't really buying into our story."

Meeting in person changed that. Maggie believes being sisters helped them build rapport, and once the manufacturers met them, they wanted to be part of the brand's journey. She says the trust that developed on both sides made the biggest difference, and she counts those relationships among the biggest highlights of building Spixal.

Asked about the hardest part of the early days, Maggie points to getting the brand out there. The sisters had to get clear on exactly who they were targeting and which problem they were solving.

It took a little while to settle. Where they landed is the line that now runs through the brand.

"So now we know, we are trying to make chaotic mornings more calm. That's our whole thing now."

Maggie explains that parents' mornings getting children to school are often hectic, and the goal is to calm them with products that simply work well. Part of that, she says, is making sure they are solving the right problems.

Running the business with her sister brings a useful balance, Maggie says. Her sister's children are teenagers, while Maggie's two children are 2 and 5. Between them, they see the problems that come up when children are young and the different ones that appear in the teenage years, which helps them find solutions for different age brackets.

Maggie's children are also a big part of why she does the work. She says they motivate her and love getting involved, and for her, working as a family is one of the best parts of running Spixal.

This year has given Maggie a new perspective. Her daughter has started school, which makes this Maggie's first year of packing school lunches. After years of selling lunch gear to other families, she is now living the morning routine herself.

Her approach is straightforward, and it is the first tip she gives other parents.

"I always pack the lunch the night before because I feel like the easiest thing to do in the morning is just put it in the lunch bag and then off to school."

Her second piece of advice is to pack food children already like and to avoid trying new things in a school lunch. Maggie creates recipes to go in Spixal's lunch boxes, and she believes simple recipes are the best way to go when it comes to feeding kids.

Spixal's design process starts with its customers. Maggie says the sisters work closely with parents, take their feedback seriously, and research what is and isn't working for them. When something isn't working, they look at how a product could solve it and build a plan around that.

Seasonality shapes the range as well. In the colder months, the focus is on keeping food warm. In summer, it shifts to keeping food cool, with insulated lunch bags that include a pocket for an ice pack. The question behind each decision, Maggie says, is where the customer is and what they need in that situation.

With no shopfront, social media is how most people discover Spixal. Maggie describes it as the ultimate source of exposure for the brand, and she thinks the timing is on their side.

"We're in such a lucky time now because it's more about interest media. So people get shown your content."

A parent interested in packing lunch boxes, for example, will be served content about it. Spixal runs paid ads, but Maggie says the sisters try to get as much reach as possible through organic posts, which they don't pay for and which pay off in the long run. Just as important, Instagram lets them talk with customers one on one, something Maggie values in a business that operates entirely online.

The months ahead are Spixal's peak period. The sisters are preparing for Black Friday, Christmas, and back to school, with a couple of new products launching. Over the next 12 months, Maggie says they will focus on the seasonal side of the range, with a lot more in the pipeline.

From a family business shaped by decades of back-to-school seasons, Maggie and her sister have built a brand around a simple idea: the lunch box should fit the lunch bag, and the lunch bag should fit the backpack. Their face-to-face work with manufacturers, their close attention to what parents and children need through the seasons, and Maggie's own first year of packing school lunches all feed into the same goal of turning chaotic mornings into calm ones.

Follow Maggie and Spixal on Instagram at @spixal.co. At Chefadora, we spotlight creators like Maggie because the everyday food that feeds families, right down to the lunch packed the night before, deserves to be shared and celebrated.

Updated on 21 Oct 2026