“Creating a future where no child goes hungry, regardless of their families economic situation”

NourishKids is an ENACTUS UoP initiative that aims to eradicate the occurrence of holiday hunger in the southeast region, specifically Portsmouth. 

Holiday hunger occurs when children who solely rely on school meals to meet their nutritional meals go with reduced or no food over the holidays due to household situations that reduce food accessibility for their families. 

We aim to launch a social enterprise that runs on the cooperative model to make food more accessible to low income families and the wider Portsmouth community. This blog post is to better inform you of what this business model is and potentially inspire you to join our cause. Please enjoy the read and consider supporting us in this endeavour. 

Business- what we want to do and why?

As a co-operative business, our primary objective is to use our profits to subsidise food prices for low income families during school holidays- for the sake of their children. During term time we will operate as a food retailer offering competitive prices to ensure we maintain profit margins that can be re-invested in ensuring we meet our primary objective. 

The services we aim to offer are;

1. Discounted food prices for low income families during school holidays. 
2. General discounted and competitive prices for the wider Portsmouth community
3. A nutrition blog that contains recipe ideas and food nutrition information 
4. A community to teach the importance of food access and a balanced diet

As a co-operative business we aim to ensure that stakeholders have a key say in all decisions. This includes the volunteers who will support us, our secondary members and most importantly our primary. This is to ensure we remain true to our primary objective. We aim to reinvest profits in ensuring we have low prices and high sales in order to remain financially secure and profitable. 

Impact- What value are we creating and how are we going to create it?

The business model we have is poised to create an impact. Essentially we increase access to healthy foods at a low price. This allows for healthier living, more savings and a better understanding of nutrition, but how exactly will this come into being? There are 3 key facts to consider. 

1. We aim to have competitive prices. As we have discussed, the discounts we offer to low income families are subsidised using the profits we make during school term time periods. In order to earn this profit, we aim to sell affordable produce and foodstuffs to the wider Portsmouth community at a competitive price. This gives us the profits to reinvest in affordable meal kits for low income families.
2. We aim to target the conscious shopper. Whilst low prices generally attract a wide audience, we believe more in getting people to see the value of their purchase. We aim to target a class of shoppers who want the pennies they spend to go into making a difference in their community. By positioning ourselves as reliable change agents we hope that this reputation will build customer loyalty with this base thus allowing us to have an assured and profitable market. 
3. We aim to build a visible community. One of our proposed services is our nutrition information platform which we hope will inspire people to have a better understanding of healthy living and the role that food plays in shaping a healthy lifestyle. This remains true across the board and thus we hope to get more people to understand the value of our mission by getting them to understand the value of nutrition. 

Brand- Whose support do we need to make this a reality?

This concept hinges heavily on NourishKids earning a trusted reputation as a business. However behind the scenes we need the help of many partners to ensure that we meet this goal. We hope to get the support of the following stakeholders;

1. Local suppliers and farmers who provide the produce we aim to sell
2. Volunteers who will help run the business 
3. Local food charities who will partner with us for distribution and logistical support
4. Local Schools who will interface with parents on our behalf and support our campaigns 
5. Local Authorities who will aid in licensings, permits and permissions 
6. The Portsmouth Community who will provide a receptive and supportive market 
7. Low Income families who will trust us to deliver on the mandate 

So what now? 

If you made it this far you probably have an interest in the project and it is my sincere hope that you join ENACTUS and bring it to life. We hope to launch this project by next April and even then we will still need all the strong hands we can get. So whenever you read this, know that there is a place for you on our agenda. It takes all of us to achieve change, thank you for reading. Please share this information if you have found it useful and reach out to us for any concerns and queries. 

Yours truly 

Simbarashe Dube, President of ENACTUS UoP 24/25