Fun, Healthy and Safe Finger Food for Babies and Children

Project Information

FEALFI

Grant agreement ID: 854748

DOI

10.3030/854748

Project closed

EC signature date 30 January 2019

Start date 1 February 2019

End date 31 July 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

YOOJI
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FEALFI (Fun, Healthy and Safe Finger Food for Babies and Children)

Reporting period: 2019-02-01 to 2019-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In 2010, 1 in 3 European children aged between 6-9 years old were overweight or obese – increasing from 1 in 4 ratio by 2008. Obese and overweight children are more likely to grow obese or overweight adults. It is estimated that obesity has about 7% impact in the national health budgets, across the EU. The European Commission has identified that unhealthy eating habits contribute to the increase of this epidemic.
Childhood is an important time to instil a preference for healthy behaviours. As early as 4 months old, babies and children should be provided with a nutritious and appealing meal. Babies themselves also want to experiment different food combinations, tastes and textures.
Parents are often too busy to prepare a special meal for their babies or children. It is complex for them to find in the market solutions that respond and adapt to their expectations and to their babies and children needs. They usually resort to feeding their babies and children small portions of adult food. But many value practicability and time saving without quality deficit.
To them, Yooji propose a vegetable-based product called "FEALFI Project" with a unprecedent ductile texture that babies and children can eat with their hands and is a healthy replacement for junk food. FEALFI occupies a unique spot in the organic baby food market as it is the only vegetable-based finger food for babies and children, with several advantages: i) helps developing healthy taste habits – parents often struggle with babies and children to eat their vegetables; ii) it is fun and safe for babies and young children to eat: babies and children can grab it with their hands, which is fun, promotes autonomy and develops motor skills; iii) it replaces junk food and can be served as a meal or as a snack
It appears that this patented products could be of interest for other verticals: dépendent elderly people and young children from 3 years old and over.
The ultimate objective of Yooji is to have lines of 8 to 12 recipes and marketing strategy for each vertical, so as to establish Yooji as a healthy food brand – for babies, children and elderly people – that helps families make the right choice.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We have focused our efforts in the three verticals in this order: i) babies +12 months old; ii) young children 3 to 6 years old; and iii) elderly adults.
We have conducted in-depth analysis of the initial target markets: France, and Benelux (picked for geographical proximity and cultural affinity). We had time to conduct summary analysis of the remaining European countries. We have used tools and methods such as PESTLE, PORTER & SWOT analyses.
First, we have met with all French major retailers, and some in Belgium, the Netherlands. We have met with 3 leading mass catering French companies, which all provide centre-based day child with baby food in France and several other European countries, and also with the French #1 ‘crèche’ network, which notably operates subsidiaries in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, Switzerland. We have provided a leading frozen food company with samples. And we have surveyed dozens of customers to have an in-depth understanding of who they are, how they feed their babies, why do they regularly of occasionnaly buy Yooji products, etc.
In doing so, we have identified child minders ("nannies") as a huge, so far unexplored, target, at least and at first in France. Nannies are quite easy to identify and to contact, since they have to register to their ‘Conseil Départemental’ (County Council) and get licensed. So we have called and interviewed almost 50 nannies to understand how they work, their needs and difficulties, and thus we have identified some characteristics that would make them most responsive to Yooji products benefits.
Concerning baby food: we have concluded that it would be inappropriate to duplicate elsewhere in Europe the B2C go-to-market strategy we had followed from 2013 in France, much too costly and time-consuming. We would rather take advantage of the recent launch in July 2018 of the Yooji e-boutique, available at www.yooji.fr which has grown up at an impressive rate, with strong KPIs. This e-boutique is underpinned by a leading French logistician, which created in 2017 a department dedicated to express delivering frozen food throughout France. This logistician has unveiled that it will start in 2020 delivering fresh food products (between 0°C to 4°C) from France to several big European cities, such as Madrid and Bruxelles, where there usually live quite an important French expatriate community to start selling at, and that frozen food deliveries will follow in 2021. The best strategy for Yooji is to wait for this logistics solution and start exporting with a Direct-to-Consumer approach, and steer clear of established retail.
A B2B approach targeting crèche and and similar centre-based day care requirements does not seem feasible, but child minders do represent a very interesting opportunity Yooji can address through its D2C solution (eboutique): in 2020, Yooji will try to make a POC with an exclusively online offer dedicated to French nannies, which is already live on the website. Then, the model will be duplicated and expanded to other European countries, subject to availability to logistics solutions.
Concerning children 3 years old and over: further to our discussions with the very same retailers we have met in order to export frozen baby food with a B2C approach, we have concluded there is no feasible B2C go-to-market strategy in the short term (no go).
Dependent elderly people: the leading mass catering French companies we met to discuss of the crèche market potential have all concluded that Yooji products combine many interesting features in respect with most dependent elderly people: food safety, ductile texture (both tender and cohesive, easy to grab, to break into small bits and to chew) and palatability. One of this company has granted Yooji the opportunity to test finger foods acceptability by residents of two of their nursing homes. This test will start by the end of September 2019. Would this test be conclusive, Yooji and the catering company would start conceiving and building a new offer dedicated to most dependent elderly people, relying on Yooji technological assets and catering company in-depht knowledge of this market.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Yooji can change the way parents feed their babies and young childrens, and thus, contribute to the fight against obesity (bad eating habits lead to childhood obesity that leads to adulthood obesity). Yooji also contributes to women empowerment, by offering mothers a solution that saves time with no compromising on food taste or quality.
Yooji can provide mass catering companies with convenient, safe and palatable finger food products that fit most dependent elderly people needs, and thus contribute to the ageing issue.