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‘Nutri’ choice now @ your school

Chennai: Millet, jowar for breakfast, palak poori for lunch? School students could now have this platterduring their stay at school. Healthy eating is no longer restricted to adults, as schools take to healthy eating. A nutritious diet for kids aged 2.5 and above is taking baby steps, with a bunch of startups in like MonkeyBox, sCoolMeal, Foodly, etc. tying up with schools to provide high nutrition quotient meals and snacks. Canteens in schools usually stock up branded snacks and packaged food with preservatives that lacks nutrition quota.

“Since parents are conscious about what kids eat, we take them to our kitchens and show them around. This gives them confidence. Costing Rs 3,000 per month, it is not too heavy on their pockets either,” said Sanjay Rao, co-founder, MonkeyBox. The startup delivers about 1,200 boxes per day.
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Schools partner with these companies, as they ease the pain of time-strapped working parents. While enrolment with these players has not been made compulsory, schools serve as the starting point. Niti Mahendra, director of EDIFY school that partners with MonkeyBox says that parents and management rely on the expertise provided by the company. “The nutritionists and dieticians ’expertise egged us on to signing up with them. Also, the lifestyle of students and their activity is taken into account while designing the menu. Children from grade 1 to grade 10 have been active consumers of their dishes,” she added. In addition to timely delivery, a non-repetitive menu with different offerings for as long as 22 days and having ingredients like wheat bread, millets, bajra etc, the companies also tie up with nutritionists, food technologists etc, invest in their own kitchens to have a scientific approach to providing a balanced meal. sCoolMeal, a startup that raised funding from California-based angel investor has built their own kitchen and has scientists working with Central Food Technological Research Institute to provide kids with balanced nutrition.

“The menu is created by nutritionists and food technologists and we follow safety protocols while delivering. Ragi Dosa, Humus and Falafel are the primary ingredients, “said Bhavana Adarsha, co-founder. The company, which operates in schools across Bengaluru and Mysuru is now reaching out to the kindergarten kids, with bite-sized modules.

Foodly, a Coimbatore-based startup that supplies healthy, packaged snacks such as seasame bars, ragi sparklets and biscuits to schools every fortnight, offers FSSAI-certified products. It prepares the snacks at the company’s processing unit at Perur.

“The annual subscription cost is Rs 2,500 per kid. The kids’ dietary patterns are observed, their height and weight are measured twice every year and the snacks best suited are suggested, “explains Vijay Raj, co-founder.

Partnering with nursery schools, Raj and his team had set up stalls in schools to convince parents of pre-schoolers who are the primary focus of Foodly. Snacks, which is consumed by the pre-school kids at 10.30 am is sent to schools on a wholesale basis in half-kg packs, which is distributed by the teachers every day. "Over 300 pre-school children are on board," says Raj, who also retails the company’s products in stores. Over 65% of Foodly’s revenue comes from the schools.

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