Canteen Ladies

Before structuring our work around today’s key focus areas, Danone Ecosystem developed pioneering initiatives. Among them, our Inclusive Distribution projects played a central role in empowering vulnerable populations and creating opportunities for local entrepreneurship. 

These early projects laid essential foundations for our current model: people and their communities are at the heart of everything we do. We strive to build truly sustainable initiatives by training and strengthening the capabilities of key professionals and the communities they serve. 

When the project started in Indonesia, there were no canteen systems in schools. As a result, children typically purchased snacks and beverages from street vendors during the school day. However, these foods often failed to meet the nutritional needs of school-aged children in a country facing a double burden of malnutrition and obesity. At the time, 40% of children in Indonesia were stunted due to inadequate or unhealthy food intake, while 15% of children under five years old were obese.  

Launched in 2011, the Warung Anak Sehat (Canteen Ladies) project created a network of women entrepreneurs who managed healthy food kiosks near schools, serving pre-planned menus of nutritious street food. These women were supported with microcredit and other services to set up and run their kiosks. 

They also benefited from training programs in nutrition, which helped create a supportive and well-informed environment for their operations.