Celebrating our 1^st birthday as a Community Interest Company (CIC)

Founder of No Fuss Meals for Busy Parents CIC Milly Fyfe is reflecting on the success of the social enterprise since it’s formation one year ago.

No Fuss Meals for Busy Parents provides a connection between food grown in the UK and how to make a tasty meal from scratch with easy to follow recipe ideas, promoting what is in season and interviews with UK farmers and growers.

The aim is to help more people to come away from a reliance on ultra processed food, which will improve health and nutrition as well as supporting the farming community with promotion of produce grown, reared or processed in the UK.

The not for profit has seen growth and audience reach increase since its formation thanks to grant funding to enhance the consumer focussed website and production of a hero video to explain exactly what the CIC is all about. You can view the hero video here: https://youtu.be/HJVqjsLzMB0

The website can be viewed here: https://www.nofussmealsforbusyparents.com/  

The CIC has also collaborated with various community groups and organisations to further its work including a cookery project with the Brixworth Food Larder and becoming a Grow, Cook, Eat Ambassador with the Northampton Hope Centre, producing videos on making gardening more accessible, creating a small seed library and engaging with the local primary school.

Awards have been presented to founder Milly Fyfe® ARAgS for achievements including Local Food Hero (silver) in the Northamptonshire Food and Drink awards, Best new start up from NNBN awards, and Small Business Britain have recognised Milly as part of the F:Entrepreneur campaign as one of 100 top female entrepreneurs in the UK.

A community engagement survey was issued to learn more about the CIC community and how they could tailor projects to meet their needs. Primarily, the audience is parents aged 25 - 44 with young children. From the 750 community members who responded, they learned:

·       44% wanted cookery content using seasonal ingredients.

·       40% wanted simple guidance of how to prepare and cook easy dishes for their families.

·       26% requested in person workshops or practical demonstrations.

·       28% requested information on how they could support local farmers.

Over 600 members of the community said time, confidence, and money prevent them cooking from scratch and so they tend to rely more on processed food.

Founder Milly Fyfe commented ‘The last year has been a complete whirlwind and I am thrilled with the direction in which the CIC is heading’. ‘The foundations have been laid and relationships formed, now the focus is to establish long term income streams, corporate sponsorship and paid collaborations on social media to be able to serve the community’.

‘Please do get in touch with me if you would like to support No Fuss Meals for Busy Parents CIC’.

You can follow the CIC on social media with the handle @NoFussMealsForBusyParents on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin.