Food 4 Education recognized for Efforts to Eradicate Childhood Hunger » Capital News
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 2 – Food 4 Education (F4E) today announced that it has been named to the fourth annual TIME 100 Most Influential Companies list, which highlights companies making an extraordinary impact around the world.
The non-profit organization has been on the forefront to eradicate childhood hunger by mainstreaming scalable and high-quality school feeding across Africa.
This honor recognizes F4E’s vital role in ensuring Africa’s children – the global workforce of the future – have access to a hot, affordable, and nutritious school meal every day.
“In only 25 years, one in four people will be African – this seismic demographic shift underscores the urgency of expanding locally-rooted school feeding programs as a crucial investment in our shared future. It also represents a significant opportunity to build more resilient, just, and sustainable food systems across the continent,” said Wawira Njiru, CEO, Food 4 Education.
Every day, millions of African school children wake up to the devastating reality of hunger, affecting not only their physical health but their cognitive and social-emotional development – 90% lack a minimally appropriate diet and 50% don’t eat at recommended frequencies.
As the largest locally-led and independently run school feeding program in Africa, F4E is working to close this hunger gap by creating the blueprint for scalable, replicable, and cost-efficient school feeding across Africa.
“Today serves as proof of the transformative power of food in changing lives. As an African non-profit, we take immense pride in being recognized in the TIME100 list, alongside numerous innovative and impactful companies worldwide,” Njiru said.
From feeding 25 kids from a single makeshift kitchen in 2012, F4E has evolved into a large-scale operation that now provides over 300,000 meals daily, demonstrating the vision, dedication, and operational efficiency of a global food corporation.
Working across multiple value chains, F4E sits at the heart of a locally-powered network that includes thousands of smallholder farmers (75% women-led), a trusted pool of aggregators, a 30,000 ft2 warehouse, 20 centralized and 55 semi-centralized rural kitchens reaching more than 1,000 schools.
“Having co-founded and worked as the CEO of Revolution Foods delivering healthy school meals in the United States, I understand the profound impact that access to nutritious food can have on a child’s ability to learn and thrive,” Food 4 Education Board Chair Kristin Groos Richmond commented.
Through a strategic alliance of philanthropy, government, and parent ownership, F4E’s working model prioritizes the highest nutritional quality, investment in local economies and communities, people-centered innovation and operational excellence.
To date, its efforts are driving a sustained, positive impact on nutritional, educational and economic outcomes for school children and the wider local community with 100% daily dietary diversity needs met, up to 37% increase in school enrollment, and over 3,000 jobs created.
“Witnessing the dedication of F4E in tackling childhood hunger in Africa is deeply personal to me. I am honored to support F4E and its innovative approach to transforming lives through nutrition and education, which this extraordinary award by TIME so aptly recognizes,” Richmond said.
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