NIH Awards Good Bowls an STTR Phase 2 Grant
Our Good Bowls vending machine at Red-Eye International
So what do all those letters and acronyms mean? We just had to use all the abbreviations to even fit it in the title line. But keep reading and we’ll explain what a great opportunity this is!
After some pilot funding, Good Bowls was launched with a Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the National Institutes of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIH). During this ‘feasibility’ period we developed Good Bowls as a healthy meal that could be frozen to ensure a long shelf life, could use local food including seasonal extra produce, and address food insecurity and equity by using a sliding scale
A fully stocked Good Bowls vending machine
In addition to developing Good Bowls, we also piloted a frozen-meal vending machine to sell our Good Bowls at a reduced price at worksites with limited availability of healthy food.
As we discovered, not only was this idea feasible, but there is significant demand for innovative strategies to get healthy meals to those at risk for food insecurity or chronic disease. So the NIH recently awarded Good Bowls an STTR Phase 2 grant to move our idea from the pilot phase into commercialization and to test the health impact in rural blue collar worksites.
With the help of the STTR funding, Good Bowls will be embarking on a number of projects that include expansion of our frozen-meal vending machine to rural worksites. In addition to offering healthy meals to we’ll also be testing some artificial intelligence App-based strategies to “nudge” workers toward healthier food choices and have better health outcomes.
And of course, we’ll be expanding on the original idea of using seasonal extras and ‘grade B’ produce to make our Good Bowls. We’re currently located in co-ops and Universities in the Triangle area of North Carolina, but we’ll be expanding throughout the state during the three years of the STTR grant.
