We fight to ensure every child has regular access to bioavailable, high protein meals during their early development stages.
During children’s early development stages, they must receive quality macro & micronutrients daily to grow and develop towards their full potential. The StartWell Foundation was established in 2018 to design and produce nutrient-dense, supplementary ready-to-eat meals to support children exposed to severe malnutrition.
The story of us
We were founded by Org van der Wath, a certified teacher turned entrepreneur with 30+ years experience in the private business sector in South Africa. Alongside leaders in the nutrition industry our team developed a meal that is rich in bioavailable proteins and contains a diverse ingredient profile. The StartWell Grow meal was born and currently more than 10 000 children enjoy this as a breakfast daily all over South Africa.
What we do
Design and Produce
We own and operate a food extrusion and fortification facility. This allows us to design and produce tailored products. It is key that we have complete control over recipe design, raw materials, ingredient quality, recipe consistency, and food safety throughout the entire process.
Nourish and Educate
Beyond providing children with daily ready-to-eat meals, we actively address the root causes of malnutrition. We raise awareness and share information on the importance of proper nutrition in low resource settings. Nutritional information workshops are part of each intervention program. Workshops delve into the World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines for complementary feeding of infants and young children aged 6–23 months. This information empowers caregivers with the very basic knowledge and skills to nurture healthy child growth and development.
Building meaningful Partnerships
The early growth spurts of babies, infants and toddlers cannot be paused when resources become scarce. Often children’s growth-needs intersect with such resource-poor times. People and organisations standing in for the household’s shortcomings, can be an important lifeline for each child’s future chances. We build strong interconnecting paths between the Donors, NGO’s and nutritionally exposed growing children in South Africa. When real generosity and real needs connect, magic/miracles can happen!
Two things make us different
Social Enterprise Food Processor
The StartWell Foundation holds the controlling shares in StartWell Foods (Pty) Ltd. This is an important structural difference compared to privately owned food processing companies. We largely exist to serve our beneficiaries through the nutrient-dense recipes we create and products we produce and sustainably sell. Achieving a healthy balance between delivering value to our beneficiaries and generating profits to our shareholders is the sweet spot.
We focus on biologically available proteins
Growing children need access to a diverse diet. Growing children also need daily access to animal proteins. This includes dairy, fish and flesh. Children’s daily access to animal proteins in resource poor households is often challenging. This is thus our focus point with our interventionist meals.
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