Motherfood supports local entrepreneurs to prevent maternal and child malnutrition. Our expert guidance in food production, marketing, and business development as well as financial support from our team and international partners, allows entrepreneurs to scale market-based food solutions for sustainable, long-term impact.
Our 2025 goal is to serve 10 million fortified servings globally.
815 MILLION
people experience hunger daily.
+2 BILLION
people lack vital critical vitamins and minerals in their diet, affecting health and reducing the life expectancy of mothers and their children.
6 out of 11
risk factors to global health are now related to poor diet, greater than the risks of air pollution, alcohol, drug and tobacco use combined.
"The problem is so huge and, coincidentally, has the highest social return on investment, that we need to create sustainable holistic systems to change the pattern."
– Jeff Baikowitz, MotherFood International
More than 50% of pregnant women in high burden countries are malnourished
The results of which are devastating on many levels. This also influences the health of their children and future generations, resulting in economic, humanitarian, and health consequences impacting the whole of society.
More than 50% of pregnant women in high burden countries are malnourished
Market-Based Solution
Market-based solutions are both scalable and sustainable. Rather than relying on ongoing donations, MotherFood International’s approach creates permanent employment solutions for women who are trapped in a cycle of poverty.
Market-based solutions are both scalable and sustainable. Rather than relying on ongoing donations, MotherFood International’s approach creates permanent employment solutions for women who are trapped in a cycle of poverty.
Improving the financial status of women has been proven to improve the nutritional status of their entire household. MotherFood International invests in local female entrepreneurs to help solve the underlying causes of poverty and malnutrition. This approach concurrently improves the livelihoods and the nutritional status of women of reproductive age and their babies and ensures that MotherFood International achieves extremely high rates of social return on investment.
Investing in Women
Improving the financial status of women has been proven to improve the nutritional status of their entire household. MotherFood International invests in local female entrepreneurs to help solve the underlying causes of poverty and malnutrition. This approach concurrently improves the livelihoods and the nutritional status of women of reproductive age and their babies and ensures that MotherFood International achieves extremely high rates of social return on investment.
Meals represent a common human experience that is nevertheless special to time, place, and culture. What people actually eat results from a complex set of interconnected production, marketing, and retail systems. What is eaten (or not) is influenced by personal preference, purchasing power, knowledge, social and religious norms, accessibility, advertising, and constraints linked to available time and space for preparation. Furthermore, what is eaten (or not) has a strong influence on the global burden of disease.
In the global response to the deepening nutrition crisis, many aid agencies and public interventions, promoting products such as pills, powders, and Ready to Use Supplementary Foods (RUSFs), have struggled to be effective on a large scale, with very low acceptability amongst women of reproductive age (as low as 20%), due to failure to adapt formats, packaging, flavors and delivery models to each population’s socio-cultural context.
These rations also have very low availability due to unsustainable and unscalable donor-based financing, and their failure to integrate solutions with local manufacturers and distributors. Multi-sector partnerships that harness market-based approaches can help to address these constraints to sustained scale and effectiveness.
