We’d eat healthy if it tasted good and wasn’t a chore.
“Fast food is bad”. Meal delivery apps cost a fortune. And our taste-buds pray for mercy at the thought of leftovers & bland ‘healthy’ meals. The struggle is real, now more than ever before as snacking has increased with more time spent at home.
When it comes to eating, 70% of us would rather grab something unhealthy & expensive than be stuck in the kitchen. But hey, it tastes good. That’s the thing. 80% of us want to experience delicious food from around the world. We want authentic flavors. We want fresh. We want nutritious. And we want it now.
It sounds like a dream. For 820 million people who don’t have access to food, that dream is a little different. They dream of never being hungry again. And while food wastage is globally at an all time high. finding ways to provide it, is often complex, costly or risky.
Nom Noms: Guilt-free indulgence, ready to eat in seconds.
“We take your taste buds to 15 exotic locations around the world in 80 seconds,’ says Lisa Sohanpal, co-founder and CEO of Nom Noms World Food. Seconds, of course, is the time it takes to heat one of Nom Noms’ mouth-watering meals and high protein hot wraps. Seconds are also what you’ll be demanding after tasting the Mediterranean Falafel Wrap or the Plant-based Butter Chick’n and Rice.
Formerly a jet-setting International Director for a medical device company, Sohanpal turned her passion for food into a business that has won 35 awards in its first five years. “I used to travel all the time, having amazing food,” she says. “Trying to cook these dishes from scratch every day was complex and time consuming so I decided to solve this problem.”
A problem further extenuated by COVID19, keeping us home in isolation, with trips to the grocery store only advised if essential, more time spent cooking and more mouths to feed.
Nom Noms began after Sohanpal and her husband, Dr Imrat Sohanpal, had children. “Life completely changed,” she says. “All three of our children were under the age of three at the time. With our medical backgrounds we knew the importance of good nutrition, and we also wanted our children to have a diverse palate from a young age. I was staying up late every night, making nutritiously rich curries from scratch. It was hard and time consuming. There was no brand out there that catered to diverse & worldly palates fast and nutritionally or inspired the next generation to make an impact by simply eating their favorite food.”
Sohanpal launched Mini Nom Noms – a world-inspired high protein snacking option – and Mega Nom Noms — the larger version of the Minis, perfect for lunch and dinners, enjoyed hot or cold, anywhere, anytime. In addition, she crafted a selection of fresh-prepared meals boosted with superfoods and blended with spices from around the world. What makes them special is the fridge-life, with natural preservatives incorporated into the recipe to extend their life to an unprecedented 30 days – that’s fresh, not frozen.
“We developed each dish to be the healthiest version of itself, bursting in authentic flavour,” she says. “This was important for us to get right. We needed to innovate and Nom Noms World Food’s globally inspired meals and high-protein hot wraps are natural, additive-free and packed with nutrition and healthy attributes from the start. We enlisted a culinary spice chef to design the unique flavor profiles for each cuisine, and battle-tested it with foodies to get their tick of approval. It’s critical to engage our consumers through food and storytelling and inspire them further on culture, cuisine and charity. We want to offer a deeper level of authenticity and transparency in our food, packaging and mission that no other brand was offering in the market.”
Social Impact: As Easy As Eating.
Creating nutritious food is only half of the company’s story. Sohanpal teamed up with the Akshaya Patra Foundation UK and offered the One for You, One for Them program, whereby every Nom Noms meal or wrap purchase pays for a meal for children attending Brijapur Primary School, near her father’s birthplace outside New Delhi. To date, the scheme has served over 800,000 meals, keeping these children off the streets and in school to gain an education.
It’s part of a cultural education mission that includes the development of the Nom Noms “virtual world”. Using AR and VR technology, it has developed a world-first experience-sharing platform which enables consumers to engage their senses and connect with locals through their device, whilst earning rewards to dive deeper into the culture you’re enjoying food from. A world first in the food industry, accessible via tablet or phone, with or without a headset. “You can virtually fly all over the world with Nom Noms,” says Sohanpal. “It’s immersive, engaging, educational and most importantly a lot of fun. It’s through this platform that our consumers can see their direct impact and personal contribution in another, less privileged, child’s life. We’re not just about world flavours, we’re about storytelling, technology, education, immersive experiences, purpose, health and wellness.”
Currently based in Toronto, Canada, Nom Noms is about to launch US-wide with Walmart, as well as in major supermarket chains in Canada, and has already successfully launched in Costco France, with plans for rapid global expansion by the end of 2020. “It’s about feeling good and doing good, from the inside out,” says Sohanpal, “through nutritious world food.”
Lisa Sohanpal – CEO | Nom Noms World Food
