Everybody Eats, a social startup created by Cornell students which plans to debut this fall, hopes to offer reduced-price food delivery service through collaborations with local restaurants to try and combat food insecurity faced by low-income families.
Co-founder of the organization, Imani Majied, ILR ’19 said in an email that the goal is to expand the opportunity to participate in food delivery services to individuals who are often excluded because they cannot afford it.
Majied revealed that when her co-founder Muhammad Ansari, an alumnus of Howard University, reached out to her with the initial concept last fall, she was “immediately excited” by it.
“Since working with Anabel’s Grocery as a freshman,” Majied said, “I’ve been passionate about fighting food insecurity and being a part of the solution. Access to affordable food is a struggle I’ve witnessed first-hand and I’ve seen how much it affects our campus and the Ithaca community. Another passion of mine is using business as a tool to empower communities instead of exploit them through social entrepreneurship.”
According to Majied, over a million meals a year in the Tompkins County are missed due to food insecurity and are not resolved by governmental assistance. Their mission is to “bridge that meal gap” and “provide low-income individuals options for affordable and accessible meals to help make it easier to avoid skipping meals.”
“For example, if we have just 10 restaurant partners who donate 10 meals a day in exchange for our food delivery service, we can bridge the meal gap by over 36,000 meals in the first year, and this is a conservative estimate,” Majied said.
Everybody Eats intends to accomplish their goal and make a social impact as a for-profit company rather than a nonprofit.
“We are following the path to becoming a B-Corp because operating as a for-profit business that measures our success by our social impact allows us to scale our impact and remain financially sustainable in ways the non-profit structure does not facilitate,” Majied said.
Majied said she has received financial resources and mentorship to assist her startup from programs at Cornell like Engaged Cornell, Office of Entrepreneurship, Office of Academic and Diversity Initiatives and the Dyson School.
“I am lucky to attend a school filled with so much incredible talent and students eager to work with Everybody Eats,” she added.
Regarding their plans for the upcoming semester, Majied said that they were still developing the application, but hope to have a trial version ready by the end of the summer. The plan during the fall is to increase interest amongst customers and to build relationships with restaurants and drivers.