2019-04-24
PERU
Preserving culture with innovative product and package design in Peru's school nutrition programme
The challenge
According to the World Food Programme, 13 percent of Peruvian children suffer from chronic malnutrition and 22 percent of people have little access to nutritious food.
Alongside this, there is a need to preserve local culture and language through education. The Quechua family of languages is spoken by more than three million Peruvians, making it the country's second most-used language after Spanish.
Qali Warma, a Department of the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion, manages Peru's National School Feeding & Nutrition Programme. This reaches approximately 3.7 million schoolchildren, of which 523,000 receive fortified beverages in Tetra Pak packages. One of the goals of this programme is to provide daily meals characteristic of the local culture.
The initiative
Our customer, P&D Andina Alimentos, S.A., made history with a Yoleit brand launch of a new fortified dairy product featuring both Spanish and Quechua languages on the package. This beverage contains locally-produced grains and is enriched with vitamins A, D, E, calcium, zinc and magnesium. The packaging also incorporates educational messages that promote good nutrition, hygiene and recycling.
The Peruvian school feeding programme, in collaboration with suppliers and Tetra Pak, also provided training to promote and improve effective food safety.
The scheme's initial recycling goals were to recover post-consumer packaging from 38 schools and to create awareness by training teachers about nutrition and environmental care in a dynamic way.
Together with our customer, we developed digital communication material for schools to share best practices relating to UHT technology and food safety. We also provided an environment education programme, which included training on how to recycle a used beverage carton. We also created an online platform on Facebook to share content about environmental care and nutrition.
The value
This Tetra Pak package protects and guarantees food safety, while the Yoleit fortified dairy beverage caters to local tastes. What's more, the innovative package design shares important information in a culturally savvy way, helping preserve one of Peru's native languages and conveying important educational messages around good eating habits, recycling and protecting the environment.
The results demonstrate the power of working closely with our customers and innovating to provide children with a nutritious product in a fun and educational way.
"This launch was done with the intention of continuing to reinforce our identity and 'Peruvianness', keeping alive our origins and valuing one of our languages. With this release, children will be able to interact and read the messages of the container in Quechua and Spanish," said Claudia Flores, Dairy Marketing Manager of P&D Andina Alimentos, S.A.
Looking ahead
We plan to continue expanding this nutrition and environmental education campaign to cover more schools and reach more children.