Abstract:
Tailored Food:
Healthy Food for Everyone Everywhere Background Food systems are broken; malnourished families are spending upwards of 60% of their income on food, food that is most often nutritionally deficient and high in salt, sugar, and fat. Malnutrition has many causes, but most often people lack access to affordable, delicious, nutritious food in their local markets. “Globally in 2020, 149 million children under 5 were estimated to be stunted, 45 million were estimated to be wasted [...] Around 45% of deaths among children under 5 years of age are linked to undernutrition.” (WHO fact sheet, 2021) The approach taken by the global development community is a reactive one, focused on emergency food aid that reaches 10% of those in need of food aid. The current food aid approach is insufficient in addressing the root causes of malnutrition - nutritious culturally-relevant food not being accessible in local markets where low-income people shop. We see the opportunity in using market-based solutions to curb malnutrition by supporting promising social entrepreneurs who are working to bring nutritious, delicious, low-cost food products to market that target low-income consumers struggling with malnutrition. Tailored Food was established in 2020, and operates in the countries where the challenges of a broken food system are most complex, due to corruption, internal conflict, industry monopolies, and economic-shifting climate change. Our team consists of passionate, project-specific consultants and university student volunteers led by Taylor Quinn, the founder and CEO.
Methods:
To prove a new approach to food systems is not only possible, but profitable, we provide small-scale social entrepreneurs with technical and financial support to develop, launch, and scale nutritious low-cost food projects. Alongside our entrepreneur partners, Tailored Food is pioneering an innovative approach to food business models, to food manufacturing, to food product development, and to food distribution. On business models, we create a profit-sharing model that incentivizes all stakeholders to stay committed to long-term scaling. On food manufacturing, we design systems that rely on human power with locally-produced equipment, and scale out through decentralized manufacturing sites, rather than scaling up with large energy-intensive manufacturing facilities. On food product development, we leverage nutritious locally-harvested crops to create shelf-stable, delicious food products ready for the time-poor modern consumer. On food distribution, we work through local market women “influencers” to create businesses that can scale.
Conclusions:
Tailored Food is a lean social-enterprise consultancy, partnering with promising entrepreneurs in the countries with the most broken food systems, to bring local, nutritious, culturally appropriate food products to market at a price those living in extreme poverty can afford. Unlike the traditional development approach which reactively treats the symptoms, we address the root-cause of malnutrition by listening to and working directly with our partners, and targeting our products towards the specific nutritional needs of each community. A Gates Foundation research study on the Tailored Food model in Liberia showed that 100% of low and middle income consumers viewed our products as affordable given their income levels. We understand that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution, so we listen, and tailor our support in response to their needs. Tailored currently has active projects in Liberia, Congo, Mozambique, Cameroon and Ethiopia. The majority of our work is done remotely in order to keep our costs low, however when there is a need we imbed ourselves with our entrepreneur partners.
