Meet My Mama

Women workers are disproportionately represented in the most marginalised and impoverished forms of work in so many sectors like the food industry.

Women's equal participation in the economy, in the value chains and trade bring back benefits to the entire society. There is a need to support comprehensive strategies to address the main barriers for women's economic empowerment. Studies show how women economic empowerment and gender equality result, among others, in political and social stability, increased labour productivity, higher returns and catalyse wider social and financial inclusion.

 Meet My Mama intends to have an impact on the whole society since:

- women represent 70% of people living below the poverty line

- Women reinvest 90% of their income in their families while men reinvest 40>#/p###

- In the countries where the gender gap in the lowest, the happiness index is the highest

In working-class areas all over France, thousands of women from a migrant background are unable to find a job. Yet, some of them are truly fantastic cooks. They have gold in their hands but they face up so many boundaries: loneliness, lack of self-confidence, low socio-economic status, non-recognition of diplomas and professional experience, language barriers, gender stereotyping, limited access to affordable childcare of good quality…

Two years ago, in order to help them showcase their talent, Loubna, Donia and Youssef had the idea of creating Meet My Mama, a startup in Paris (France) that offers authentic cuisine from all four corners of the globe at business events, just like ‘mama’ makes. This social enterprise also aims at helping women to develop their own career ambitions: setting up their own restaurants, attending a cooking school (the Mama’s Academy), offering professional opportunities.

The first beneficiaries from our projects are women based in France and in Europe with a migration background who has a culinary talent

 When Meet My Mama manage to have an impact on a woman’s life, not only the impact is economical but also social and psychological. A successful woman who is self-confident tends to inspire her husband and children. Nitha is a Sri-Lankan refugee : she had to leave Sri Lanka for Malaysia. She lived there for about 8 years and couldn’t have the chance to work.Though she had a talent as a cooker and started her own catering business and became the cooker of the UN. Two years ago, she came with her daughter first in France to find refuge: when she met the cofounder Youssef, she barely knew that she was about to realize her dream : A year later, she had the chance to follow a bakery training with a Chef and is about to open the first Sri Lankan Bakery in Paris, her daughter is a successful student and pianist, and her husband had the opportunity to come live with her. 

-   a BtoB catering platform powered by women with a culinary talent. This platform gathers 300 client companies

-   an empowerment program led by The Mama Academy which provides professional trainings (hygiene and food security, food design, digital, public speaking, , local language…), social and administrative assistance, a huge professional network and various professional opportunities.

=> Empower My Mama : During two years, Meet My Mama worked on understanding, identifying and overcoming barriers for women in taking leadership position in the food industry.

Thus, Meet My Mama can:

-       easily detect and target women who are motivated to develop and live from their culinary talent (we do not need to look for mamas). This is possible now thanks to, a good collaboration with many organisations, an efficient communication strategy and the development of a strong brand.

-       An empowerment program based on various and qualitative professional trainings linked to food industry. The program takes into account the main needs and issues women are facing up. The program is tailored to meet individual mamas’ requirements.

-       Provide an administrative and legal support to face up boundaries encountered by women. This support is a key to prevent dropping out of professional trainings and improve the impact of our project.

-       A huge professional network. We are working with 300 companies and half of them are very big.

-       Many different working opportunities. Restaurants, hotels and other companies contact us to hire women trained by Meet My Mama. Our Mamas can also work on our catering platform.

-       Support and facilitate entrepreneurship projects led by women in the food industry. Meet My Mama is working on a digital platform to help women to create and manage their own business. We believe that new technologies can contribute to boost female entrepreneurship so tackling barriers to digital inclusion faced by women is a real challenge.

In Europe, there is no company which can be considered as the reference for world and home-made cuisine. Indeed, we can not find in France an organization which offers to hundred of women, an empowerment program tailored to meet individual mamas’requirements.

 Meet My Mama is the first to do it :

• first of all, it offers the world in only one bit to any company that want to travel. In France particularly, companies are bored of the catering offers : they always eat the same food, do not know who is behind the food, and do not take the time to eat properly to get to know more about the food they are eating → Meet My Mama is the first platform that give the chance to any company to try everyday a new kind of food and to create a unique moment every time they meet a mama during lunch or dinner

• in addition to this fact, everybody knows that best food is our mama’s food : except that we don’t see them and that any organization had the courage before to give them tools to be independent, autonomous and entrepreneur --> Meet My Mama is the first organization that creates an empowering program for every women who was left by the society before.

Technology is a key if you want to lead a business

We believe that new technologies can contribute to boost female entrepreneurship so tackling barriers to digital inclusion faced by women is a real challenge.

We are creating the first platform for :

- our mamas : they will have everything in one App to deal with their businesses. We won a project with Ashoka and Share It and developers are creating this app. It will be user friendly and be easy to use. All of our mamas even if they don't know how to read or write know how to use a phone. When they create a business, they need to use technology to increase their values. also, it will have an option where all the community of mamas all around the world will have the opportunity to get information on "how to do to create a catering business". It will share informations and it will create an easy way to make new relationship.

- our clients who will have a direct app to travel culinary spoken :)

During two years, Meet My Mama worked on understanding, identifying and overcoming barriers for women in taking leadership position in the food industry.

Thus, Meet My Mama tends to create en ecosystem that will

-       easily detect and target women who are motivated to develop and live from their culinary talent (we do not need to look for mamas).

-       create an empowerment program based on various and qualitative professional trainings linked to food industry. 

-       Provide an administrative and legal support to face up boundaries encountered by women. 

-      Be a huge professional network. 

-       Support and facilitate entrepreneurship projects led by women in the food industry.

In one year we did business with :

- 500 companies clients

- 10 000 people have already tried the mama's food

More than that, we created a community of more than 300 women throughout France with Empower My Mama and we work closely with 40 entrepreneur women who have a catering business

In one year more than 1000 women will be on our network and we will work closely with 100 women entrepreneur

In five years, we hope to reach especially with the technology more than 100 000 women!

- an online platform for all the mama who have a catering business

- a media to inspire all women in the world who want to live by her passion for cooking

- being the first revelator in Europe of women with a talent for cooking

- being a reference for company and people who want to travel culinary spoken

We have 2 barriers to scale : 

• the first one is the ability to have enough professional kitchens that our Mamas can rent. 

• the technical platform need to be improved (but we are working on it) 

- making partnerships with city centers and real estate groups to find kitchen

- we are currently working on the app because we won a prize with Ashoka and Share IT

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We are 16 full time staff 

Donia, loubna and youssef the cofounders were raised by those women : they saw them, they grew up with them and they dedicated their lives for them

Donia did a master in public administration with experience in the public and private sector and had various humanitarian experience

Youssef had a degree from a business school and had many experiences in the food industry. He also traveled to see those women in South Asia

Loubna had a degree in innovation and digital and had experience In the private sector. She is also a member of the CNNum

- Danone : create a place for free expression for our mama's to make discovery their culture

- Real Estate Groups : to create professional kitchen for our mamas

- Google : official catering partner in France and UK for prestigious event  

Our business model is based on “purchase/resale operations. We buy food from our Mamas and we sell it to the companies with margin. We do the same for all the services (delivery, service staff, decorative arts,etc). 

The companies are our paying customers. 

The more services we sell, the better the revenue and the margin are! This a business model very easy and clear for all our stakeholders: Mamas, clients, team, etc…

And this business model helps us to turn profit easily. 

The companies are our paying customers.

We want to extend our impact by : 

• training and empowering more Mamas. To do that, we will need to hire people who will be able to take care of our Mamas. 

• opening others cities in the world. We are requested in several cities abroad. So we need funds to sustain our growth. 

• improving our technical platform and add new features.  So we need funds to hire people who will improve our platform to increase our positive impact.

Solve can be a very good value for us at the stage we are know :

we created meet my mama almost 2 years a go : we had an MVP, we tested this idea, we found solutions and we tried for 1 year before find good solutions for the mamas and the clients. We begun at 3 co-founders and now we are a team of 16 people. We begun in Paris and have now opportunities in the big cities in France and even in Europe (London) for scaling our activity.

Solve will be an amazing chance or us :

- we will join a network with professional who can help us with the strategy, the management, validate the business model, find ways to scales our solution... Those 12 months of personalized support with the members of different sectors

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-Real Estate Groups : we need professional kitchens for alll our mamas in the world and they can create exactly what we need in a particular neighborhood :: more impact, more work

- companies in the food industry to find solutions and create new products and services healthy for the society

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Meet My Mama is working to make the food industry and the society more inclusive and sustainable by setting up a framework which enable each woman to live from her culinary talent. Women workers are disproportionately represented in the most marginalised and impoverished forms of work in so many sectors like the food industry.

 Unlocking powerful potentials is a key to contribute to a sustainable society.

It is high time to promote talentend women and unlock powerful potential!

It fits perfectly with the Innovation for Women Prize that want to improve the quality of life for women through technology. With Meet My Mama and our platform we promote a world where women’s voices can be celebrated, especially within big companies.

Some of our mamas are refugees and our solutions use innovation to advance economic, financial, and political inclusion of refugees in their hosting communities especially in France. We largely talk about women from migration that have a talent for cooking. And we try to empower them and give them all the tools to make their dreams come true.

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