Member Article

Foodinate wins Boost a Business award 2016

Social enterprise, Foodinate has won the RBS and Entrepreneurial Spark 2016 ‘Boost a Business award’, beating 800 other businesses to the prize – and the opportunity to meet Leonardo DiCaprio.

Founded in 2015, the social enterprise aims to create a sustainable impact on food poverty in the UK, teaming up with restaurants to ensure that every Foodinate-branded meal bought in a participating restaurant results in a meal for a local person in need. Since launching its pilot study in September 2015, the innovative not-for-profit organisation has secured nearly 5,000 free meals for homeless people, that are served at the Booth Centre in Manchester city centre, which provides hot food for its homeless visitors.

Thousands of votes were cast during the shortlisting process, and as one of five finalists, Foodinate received overwhelming support, eventually winning with 68% of the total vote.

During voting, people praised the company’s “brilliant, simple and effective way to tackle food poverty” and “imaginative structure”, with one voter impressed with Foodinate’s “solution to assist reducing food poverty whilst bringing commercial advantage to businesses”.

Foodinate’s founder Caroline Stevenson said,

“I could not be more excited to win this award, and in fact the whole way in which the competition played out is extremely exciting for me. Not only did we receive a massive majority of the total vote, but we also received over 130 messages of support and encouragement from people all over the UK – a couple even as far as India! We even had people coming up with their own ideas of other ways they think we could harness our impact! I am thrilled that people have gotten behind the concept in such a big way, and it really shows how much people believe in what we are doing and how much they are rooting for Foodinate to become a massive success.”

As part of her prize, Caroline was invited to the Scottish Business Awards on November 17th where she met Academy Award® winning actor, producer and activist, Leonardo DiCaprio who was giving a talk to Britain’s leading entrepreneurs and business people.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Charlie Gallum .