Nourishing the Future
Eat Real helps redefine school lunch by advocating for nutritious, sustainable foods.
Public schools in the United States are responsible for feeding our children. But the food system is flooding cafeterias with overly-processed meals that aren’t good for the environment, and contribute to food-related epidemics like Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Since 2019, Eat Real has catalyzed a movement to create healthier meal programs, creating a free certification program that provides a pathway for school leadership to make change. Since Eat Real began its certification program, it has grown from working with 50 schools to 600, with another 2,000 on the waitlist. But the organization’s brand and communication hadn't had a chance to catch up, and it needed to be able to connect with philanthropists who believe in its mission. Eat Real teamed up with IDEO to build a brand and communication strategy that reflects its current ethos, as well as its ambitions for the future.
2023 Funding goals reached
With its new branding, the nonprofit beat its end-of-year fundraising goals, putting it on track to serve more schools in 2024
129M
meals served to 360,000 students every year at schools that have gone through the certification program
To scale its program large enough to be at the center of sustainable food systems change, Eat Real needed the branding and messaging to reach a new set of philanthropists.
Almost 30 million kids in the US depend on public school lunches for more than 50 percent of their daily caloric intake, but these meals are frequently made up of ultra-processed, unsustainable foods. Studies show that these foods directly contribute to epidemics like Type 2 diabetes and obesity, and reinforce cycles of poverty in underprivileged communities.
1 in 5 adolescents are now pre-diabetic.
Before Eat Real can advocate for better school meals, it has to connect with school leaders—and donors. As the organization expanded its work beyond school certification, it needed an updated soup-to-nuts branding redesign that represents its purpose.
To get started on the five-week sprint, the IDEO team conducted a brand audit and interviews with Eat Real staff, board members, and donors. The team learned that Eat Real’s brand messaging and voice showed up inconsistently, and that board members wanted greater clarity around communication to prospective donors. Several people expressed a desire to change the original logo centered on a fork to a more culturally-inclusive symbol, and for the logo to be separated from the Eat Real Certified stamp, since the organization had evolved to do much more than just certification.
The IDEO team worked in close collaboration with Eat Real to deliver comprehensive brand guidelines, including Eat Real’s brand purpose and core values, positioning and personality, logo and wordmark, visual expression, verbal expression, and brand showcase. The brand’s new tagline, Nourish the Future, speaks directly to how real food access unleashes the possibility for a healthier society and a healthier planet. A new mark combines three elements that signify much more: a welcoming bowl (joy and ritual), the serving spoon (generosity and nourishment), and a sprouting leaf (a future where children and the planet flourish). The team also landed on an unapologetically vibrant color palette, to bring surprise and energy to the brand. From this foundation, Eat Real created a new website, completed a photo shoot with IDEO's art direction, and launched the brand with new messaging and collateral within a year. Now, Eat Real has the tools it needs to scale its operations and affect real change.
Before Eat Real can advocate for better school meals, it has to connect with school leaders—and donors. As the organization expanded its work beyond school certification, it needed an updated soup-to-nuts branding redesign that represents its purpose.
To get started on the five-week sprint, the IDEO team conducted a brand audit and interviews with Eat Real staff, board members, and donors. The team learned that Eat Real’s brand messaging and voice showed up inconsistently, and that board members wanted greater clarity around communication to prospective donors. Several people expressed a desire to change the original logo centered on a fork to a more culturally-inclusive symbol, and for the logo to be separated from the Eat Real Certified stamp, since the organization had evolved to do much more than just certification.
The IDEO team worked in close collaboration with Eat Real to deliver comprehensive brand guidelines, including Eat Real’s brand purpose and core values, positioning and personality, logo and wordmark, visual expression, verbal expression, and brand showcase. The brand’s new tagline, Nourish the Future, speaks directly to how real food access unleashes the possibility for a healthier society and a healthier planet. A new mark combines three elements that signify much more: a welcoming bowl (joy and ritual), the serving spoon (generosity and nourishment), and a sprouting leaf (a future where children and the planet flourish). The team also landed on an unapologetically vibrant color palette, to bring surprise and energy to the brand. From this foundation, Eat Real created a new website, completed a photo shoot with IDEO's art direction, and launched the brand with new messaging and collateral within a year. Now, Eat Real has the tools it needs to scale its operations and affect real change.
“IDEO was a powerful thought-partner and design guide. They gave us the brand building blocks we needed to achieve a new level of impact and to be recognized as one of the top nonprofits of our time.”
