An exciting social start-up in Finland

There’s an exciting fresh social start-up in Finland that tackles the problem of uneven health provision of the society. It’s called Venner.

Venner offers a completely new, simple and effective way to help a poor family in Finland with nutritious food delivered directly to their door. It’s a webshop for grocery bags that anyone can buy – and have delivered to a Finnish low-income family with children. Every bag in includes healthy Venner recipes, so that families also learn to cook healthy food.

Venner finds families in need with the help of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and Turku Hope Association. Selected families are already motivated to try out new types of cooking. They work with local or online grocery stores to organize the deliveries.

Their story began in 2018

Venner’s story comes from a personal desire to help more efficiently.  Tuulia Järvinen, a founding member of Venner, is an entrepreneur in the food and well-being sector, and has assisted families in need by delivering food assistance home. The feedback she received from her healthy food donation bags was stunning, and it opened her eyes to the distress that many in the society experience. Even if healthy plant-based foods, especially when harvested, are not always expensive, not everyone has the resources to explore new dishes or to look for recipes to suit them. Tuulia noticed that the idea of Venner did not leave her alone. It was time to do something about it.

Before Christmas 2018 Venner sold out their Christmas food bags (1000 food bags worth 60 €) . Every family (in Helsinki area) who applied for Christmas help  from Hope received Christmas food, goodies and vitamin D from “the Vennerians” – Venner’s customers. One Christmas food bag contained ingredients and recipes for up to 8 people.  Since then the social company (They also hold the Finnish Social Enterprise Mark) has been successful during their first year.

They’ve already delivered:

  • 784 nutritious food bags of the week = up to 33,000 meals with recipes, worth 70 560€
  • “1000 Christmas Food Bags = Christmas Food + Delicacies for up to 8000 people”
  • 1784 prk effective Word Sol Vitamin D
  • 1784 pounds of olive oil
  • over 1784 kg of fruit

(Venner Facebook)

 

“Venners” – Venner supporters and core team

Venner has been able to inspire some of the most known Finnish celebrities, artists, politicians and other influencers to act as “Venners”, giving the company help, support and visibility. The core team has expertise with nutritional, holistic health and social work backgrounds – as well as strong business / marketing experience. The team is young and energetic – and seem to live “as they teach”.

 

Developing new ways to help

Venner food bag is an effective, empowering and local way to help. In addition, buyers can sign up for the new Venner Kitchen service.  An online service with over a hundred recipes and countless chef videos, updated weekly, customers can buy themselves inspiration to their own kitchen, and at the same time help. Money is channeled directly into the food aid of low-income families in the form of Venner food bags.

 

Learn more about Venner here (in Finnish)