Charity sits right at the heart of Cytoplan. Since conception in 1990, the philosophy of the company has been built on the foundations of helping others and improving people’s health and wellbeing.
Since 2006 our company has been owned by a charitable foundation. From 2006 to November 2023, we were owned by The AIM Foundation (AIM), with a share of our profits given to AIM in order to fund its Nutrition for Health & Wellbeing charitable donations.
This now continues under the Nutritional Wellbeing Foundation (NWF), which was founded in July 2023 and is now the sole owner of Cytoplan. The NWF has taken on AIM’s nutritional grant commitments and it is these grants that a share of Cytoplan’s profits continue to fund.
The principles that guide us and our owners are aligned in helping to advance public health through nutrition, natural products & integrated health care. Our charitable giving through NWF has two key ambitions – to increase the understanding of the importance of nutrition amongst health practitioners as well as reduce childhood obesity.
The NWF believes that its funding can achieve change in four different ways:
Changing the system
This includes supporting work that changes policy, structures, mindsets and practice including raising the voices of those under-represented, collaborations, awareness raising, advocacy, testing and spreading ways of working, and research.
Strengthening the sector
This includes supporting the professional development of practitioners, funding collaborative working, developing best practice and sharing learning.
Direct support
Supporting the direct work of organisations to improve access to quality food options, including free school meals, in lower income neighbourhoods.
Independent research
Undertaken for the public benefit with results disseminated to the public and all those able to benefit from it.
We have continued to support charities nationwide this year, thanks to our loyal customers. With 2024 drawing to a close, here’s an update on some of the charity activities that the NWF and Cytoplan have been fortunate enough to support over this year.
Grants made by NWF
Over the past 5 years, Nutritank have successfully made nutrition & wellbeing education for health professionals accessible and affordable, by offering free webinars and in person educational events.
In April 2023, AIM/NWF made a commitment of £120,000 over three years to support their core costs, which is helping them to scale their work as a Continuing Medical Education provider for topics related to food, nutrition and lifestyle medicine.
“ Your ongoing grant funding has meant Nutritank C.I.C. can work on multiple successful projects and continue our mission to increase and improve nutrition education within medical training” – Iain, NutriTank
Institute of Health Visiting (iHV)
The ‘Healthy Weight, Healthy Nutrition’ training programme was originally supported by AIM from 2018. This is an evidence-based, holistic approach to upskill health practitioners to be confident in having conversations with families around healthy nutrition (from the pre-conception period onwards), physical activity and oral health – all of which are significant contributors to healthy weight.
In April 2023 a commitment of £120,000 over three years was made to build upon the success of the programne so that it can be further embedded and developed.
Culinary Medicine UK CIC was started as a non-profit organisation to tackle the problem of poor nutrition training for health professionals and empower them to talk confidently about food in medicine. Their innovative and engaging in-person and online education courses combine nutrition science with hands on cooking and culinary skills and their flagship online course has now been accessed by thousands of health professionals.
The NWF is continuing a commitment of £120,000 over 3 years (from 2023) to support the further development of CMUK’s work with health professionals.
School Food Matters teaches children about food and aims to improve school children’s access to healthy and sustainable food.
AIM originally funded their project, Young Marketeers, which gave children the opportunity to experience the joy of growing fresh fruit and vegetables and developing their skills by selling their produce at the London Borough Market.
NWF continues with the commitment of £100,000 over two years to support their Healthy Zones Programme, to support more London schools to adopt a whole school approach to healthier eating.
Sustain – Children’s Food Campaign
Sustain is an alliance of organisations and communities working together for better food, farming, and fishing. They advocate for food and agriculture policies and practices that have the health and welfare of people and animals at their centre.
In 2021 AIM awarded a grant of £25,000 to support putting pressure on the government to introduce universal free school meals and campaigning for healthy school meals. Sustain has gathered evidence for the benefits of universal free school meals and is working with key partners (#Feedthe Future campaign, Soil Association). They have raised the profile of this issue but not yet swayed the government.
In January 2023 AIM agreed a further grant commitment of £95,000 over 3 years to continue to support their campaigning work and the NWF has continued this.
Recognising a pervasive lack of evidence-based, independent information and resources on eating well in pregnancy and early years, the First Steps Nutrition Trust was founded.
They play a unique role in the early years food and nutrition landscape and work closely with many of NWF’s other grant holders to support good nutrition from conception to age five.
In March, NWF awarded them £120,000 over three years to support their practical and policy work.
www.nutritionalwellbeingfoundation.org.uk
Thank you
Every customer who purchases our products, whether it be once, twice or ten times a year, is helping us to support those less fortunate than ourselves. We believe this is a sound business model; one that we are proud of and one that hopefully, in time, will achieve a goal we have set ourselves: to help improve the health of the nation. Our charity work – both on a small and large scale – is testament to this.
We hope that this information has given you an insight into the charitable structure of Cytoplan and the significant role it plays in the day to day running of the company. We hope you can continue to support us in the future.
Last updated on 18th December 2024 by cytoffice
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