Entrepreneur

A solution by Foodinate submitted to Breaking the cycle of homelessness

Foodinate is an award-winning social enterprise, teaming-up with restaurants to create a sustainable impact upon food poverty in local areas. It is a simple "meal-for-meal" model: for every "Foodinate" branded meal enjoyed in a restaurant, we provide a meal for a local person in need. Having been in operation for just one year, we have generated over 10,000 meals for homeless people in Manchester.

(Pitched: 21/12/2017)

One Page Summary

THE PROBLEM

It is crazy to me to think that we live in the seventh richest country in the whole entire world, yet more than 13 million people are living below the poverty line, and more than 1 in every 6 parents in the UK have gone without food themselves so they can afford to feed their families. In fact, according to statistics from the United Nations, 4.7 million brits regularly go a day without eating due to poverty.

Here is something else to think about: while all of this is going on, the rest of us are treating ourselves to lovely meals out in restaurants approximately 1.4 BILLION times per year


This gap between the haves and the have-not’s is enormous, and growing, but what if we can link them together in a sustainable, scalable, systematic way?

THE SOLUTION


My name’s Caroline Stevenson, and I’ve created Foodinate - an innovative social enterprise, teaming-up with your favourite restaurants to do just that.
It is a simple meal-for-meal programme: every time a ‘Foodinate’ branded meal is bought in a participating restaurant, another meal is donated to a local person in need.

THE USP


Since the restaurant agrees to cover the cost of the donated meal, all the diner has to do is order a meal from the menu that’s been marked with a Foodinate sticker, and a local food giving charity will provide a hot, nourishing meal to someone in need in that same community.

THE IMPACT SO FAR

Having been in operation for just over 12 months, we have already been featured in The Independent, The Guardian, and ITV Evening News, have celebrity endorsements from the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Ryan Giggs, and most importantly generated over 10,000 meals for homeless people across Manchester. We are now building on the incredible foundation we have created and plan to scale our impact massively.

THE VISION

We aim to generate a total of 50,000 meals for local people in need by the end of 2018, and 500,000 by the end of 2020. Beyond that, through the partnerships we are constantly forming with restaurants, hospitality businesses and further collaboration with other local businesses, we also plan to expand our impact into shelter, work placements and job opportunities for those in need in the local community.