Paulig invests in Carrot Kitchen, the world’s first mobile cooking buddy for kids
Paulig’s venture arm PINC has invested in promoting a healthier lifestyle for the next generation by leading the pre-seed round of Carrot Revolution, the founder of Carrot Kitchen, a pedagogical and inspiring cooking app for kids. The app guides the user through a step-by-step process with interactive videos and voice instructions. It also has special tutorials on how to use various cooking tools.
“Our purpose ‘For a life full of flavour’ is our inspiration to build a new, sustainable food culture, one that is good for both people and the planet. This starts with our children and is why we want to inspire them to make sustainable, healthy and tasty choices”, says Juha Väre, Paulig’s CFO and member of the Investment Committee of PINC.
Childhood obesity is increasing worldwide due to unhealthy diets and low amounts of vegetables. Research shows that children who cook feel empowered and encouraged to eat healthy foods, a habit that tends to stay when growing up into adults*.
“At Paulig, we also strive to make everyday cooking easier and more fun”, says Marika King, Head of PINC. “Carrot Kitchen is such a great tool to involve the kids in cooking early on and this benefits the whole family – whether it is allowing kids to become more independent, sharing the family workload, promoting cooking as a collective family experience or simply turning screen time into something more creative.”
“Carrot Kitchen is an exciting investment in the education technology space with many potential synergies with Paulig”, King continues. “And the team is experienced with a great combination of entrepreneurship, branding, gaming and Finnish pedagogics which is world class. We really look forward to working with them.”
Carrot Kitchen is a pedagogical and inspiring cooking app for kids
The app guides the user through a step-by-step process with interactive videos and voice instructions. It also has special tutorials on how to use various cooking tools. It is developed in a fun and game-like way with several elements such as points/reward systems that will keep the children engaged. Children can also invite their friends to cook with them. Many recipes are “kids’ favourites”.
“We see PINC and Paulig as the ideal investor due to aligned values and high synergy potential”, says Olli Freese, CEO of Carrot Revolution. We are also very excited to collaborate more closely with PINC; the team has added a lot of value so far and with this injection money we can really level up the development of the app and start our international scale-up.”
Paulig is leading the round of about 0.5 EUR million. The other investors are Aristo-Invest Oy and TukkuHeino Oy.
PINC in brief
PINC is Paulig’s venture arm for investments in early stage start-ups in and around the future of food. The objective of PINC is to help Paulig renew itself and prosper as well as contribute to a tastier and more sustainable planet.
https://www.pauliggroup.com/pinc/
Carrot Revolution in brief
Carrot Revolution is a Finnish start-up with a vision of being the world's most impactful and fun cooking and wellbeing brand for kids. Carrot´s Co-founders are CEO Olli Freese, CMO/CXO Piritta Koivisto and CPO Emmi Kuusikko. It has seven employees and is based at Maria01 start-up community.
Aristo-Invest in brief
Aristo-Invest is a family office of CapMan founder Ari Tolppanen.
TukkuHeino in brief
TukkuHeino Oy is the more than 120-year-old parent company of Heino Group, led by the Heino family.
*Sources:
Alm, S., Olsen, S. O., & Honkanen, P. (2015). The role of family communication and parents' feeding practices in children's food preferences. Appetite, 89, 112-121.
Lavelle, F., Spence, M., Hollywood, L., McGowan, L., Surgenor, D., McCloat, A., ... & Dean, M. (2016). Learning cooking skills at different ages: a cross-sectional study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 13(1), 1-11.
Muzaffar, H., Metcalfe, J. J., & Fiese, B. (2018). Narrative review of culinary interventions with children in schools to promote healthy eating: directions for future research and practice. Current developments in nutrition, 2(6), nzy016.
Radtke, T., Liszewska, N., Horodyska, K., Boberska, M., Schenkel, K., & Luszczynska, A. (2019). Cooking together: The IKEA effect on family vegetable intake. British journal of health psychology, 24(4), 896-912.
Van der Horst, K., Ferrage, A., & Rytz, A. (2014). Involving children in meal preparation. Effects on food intake. Appetite, 79, 18-24.
Pearson, N., Biddle, S. J., & Gorely, T. (2009). Family correlates of fruit and vegetable consumption in children and adolescents: a systematic review. Public health nutrition, 12(2), 267-283.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18559129/
Media contacts:
Piia Puska
Communications Manager
Tel. +358 407386086
Email: piia.puska@paulig.com
About Paulig
Paulig is a family-owned food and beverage company, growing a new, sustainable food culture – one that is good for both people and the planet. Paulig provides all things tasty; coffees and beverages, Tex Mex and spices, snacks and plant-based choices. The company's brands are Paulig, Santa Maria, Risenta, Gold&Green and Poco Loco. Paulig’s sales amounted to EUR 920 million in 2020. The company has over 2,000 passionate employees in 13 different countries working around the purpose For a life full of flavour.
www.pauliggroup.com
