Overweight and obesity are increasingly affecting children and adolescents in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. A decade ago, nearly 30% of school-age children and 26% of adolescents faced these issues (ENSANUT, 2012). Today, the situation persists: 35% of children aged 5–10 and almost 30% of teenagers aged 11–19 are affected (Ministry of Health, 2022). These figures underline the urgent need to improve the school food environment and the quality of meals offered to children.
In this context, Quito’s food system presents a unique opportunity to advance sustainability by addressing interconnected challenges related to children’s nutrition, food loss, and the limited involvement of local producers in school supply chains. Strengthening these connections can improve children’s access to healthy food while building more resilient local economies.
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Two young entrepreneurs are turning this vision into reality: Steve Hidalgo and Patricia Cruz. Steve runs a school kiosk and restaurant in Nanegalito, north-western Quito, offering healthier meals sourced from local producers. Patricia, an agroecological farmer in Atahualpa, north-eastern Quito, cultivates gulupa, a nutrient-rich fruit from the passion fruit family. Her work expands nutritious food options for local markets and school feeding initiatives.
Both began their entrepreneurial journeys in a context where stable employment opportunities for young people are increasingly scarce. By engaging in food system initiatives linked to school nutrition, they are creating livelihoods for themselves while contributing to healthier diets and stronger local food systems.
“The problem is that there are very few job opportunities for young people; you need a lot of qualifications and experience, which can be limiting. Being independent is very demanding because you have to keep a schedule and stay organised, but we are making it work,” says Steve Hidalgo, school kiosk manager.
“My family’s idea is to have our own business, so we don’t have to work for others. We have the resources and ideas to create our own venture and support each other. Today, five members of my family are involved, including my uncles, aunts, and cousins,” adds Patricia Cruz, an agroecological entrepreneur.
Being young and finding employment has become something of a privilege in Ecuador. According to official government figures, in 2025, 8.1% of young people aged 18 to 29 were unemployed nationwide, while 24.1% were working in jobs for which they were overqualified (INEC, 2025). The same source identifies barriers to youth employability such as lack of experience (28.62%) and insufficient job-specific skills demanded by the labour market (14.49%), resulting in nearly 26% of young people remaining in the informal economy. According to the Youth Employment Report (Children International, 2025), 59.8% of young people depend financially on their parents, and 51.1% report having no income at all.
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In this setting, starting one’s own business may seem like a solution that allows young people to support — and even employ! — their families and others. This is explained by Carolina Salazar, Rikolto’s Programme Coordinator in Ecuador. “When the economy becomes difficult, entrepreneurship can be the only viable option.” According to a report by Children International and Youth Employment, 70.9% of young Ecuadorians want to start their own business, particularly in commerce, technology, and gastronomy. For Carolina, the main challenges are lack of funding and limited business training. “Entrepreneurs need start-up capital and mentoring, and they also need motivation, and sometimes passion, to stay engaged and unlock their creativity,” she says.
For Steve and Patricia, healthy and sustainable school meals have become a concrete entry point for addressing this broader challenge. They are among the young entrepreneurs supported by “Ideas that Nurture”, an initiative led by Rikolto that links youth entrepreneurship with efforts to improve school feeding and reduce food waste.
The initiative is supported by the Gillès Foundation and implemented by Rikolto and the Quito Food Bank, in collaboration with the Universidad Internacional del Ecuador (UIDE) and ConQuito, Quito’s Economic Promotion Corporation. The project is to develop young people’s entrepreneurial skills, improve children’s access to healthy food, test a practical business model based on solidarity and circularity, and create a supportive ecosystem for these young food entrepreneurs. We are also working in alliance with the Municipal Secretariat of Education, Recreation and Sports of the Metropolitan District of Quito, the National Federation of School Kiosks of Ecuador, the Institute of Popular and Solidarity Economy (IEPS), CONEXIÓN for Sustainable Development, as well as experts and academics.
“To ensure that your business grows and remains sustainable, you must constantly generate new ideas. That way, you can always offer a good range of products to your customers. We can make healthy food more diverse and attractive; there are many options beyond just fruit salad. We can transform and innovate in what we offer in schools,” says Steve.
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Patricia highlights that the training sessions she attended aligned with what her business was already doing, while helping her understand a new market segment. She notes that receiving hands-on training in good agricultural and manufacturing practices was particularly valuable.
“After the training, we said to ourselves: there is a small fruit that is not very well known, but has many nutritional benefits, and we want it to be more available to children. We are working to reaffirm agroecology as our productive system,” shares Patricia.
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At the beginning of 2025, the project launched an open call for young entrepreneurs to strengthen their business and increase children’s access to healthy school food. The call focused on three categories: sustainable food production, healthy food processing, and school kiosk management. Between July and October 2025, 29 of these ventures completed the four‑month training programme, which focused on strengthening technical capacities, financial and soft skills, as well as knowledge on healthy nutrition, sustainable production, and good manufacturing practices.
As the programme progressed, 19 ventures developed business improvement plans. Eighteen of these competed for seed capital in early 2026, and eight winners received funding to strengthen their businesses: one school kiosk manager, one agroecological producer and six nutritious food processors producing items such as as natural fruit juices, dehydrated fruit snacks and natural yogurt. Other entrepreneurs pitched products including natural fruit powder, mushroom snacks, and high-protein bars made with grasshoppers.
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In total, the programme reached 118 individual entrepreneurs from these 19 ventures, 58.62% of whom were aged 18 to 35. The training phase covered regulatory, technical (with an emphasis on health and nutrition), organisational, financial, and commercial topics, as well as access to external financing, and ended with a graduation event in November 2025. Participants subsequently benefited from specialised technical assistance in food safety and mentoring to refine their business improvement plans, enabling their participation in the 2026 seed capital competition.
One of the initiative’s strategies includes testing a solidarity business model for free-range egg production, which reaches 135 schoolchildren in southern Quito and is managed by the Quito Food Bank.
In Quito, the cross-subsidy business model ensures that some of the eggs produced by the Quito Food Bank (BAQ) provide daily protein for 135 children at Inti School, a BAQ beneficiary in a high food-insecurity area. The remaining eggs are sold to consumers in the city.
The laying hens are raised under a free-range system and are partly fed with rescued food recovered by the Quito Food Bank, which helps reduce food loss and strengthens the circular economy within the local food system.
How is the model financed? Revenue generated through egg sales contributes to sustaining the solidarity model, making it possible to provide nutritious food to vulnerable children. In addition, Inti School makes a proportional financial contribution to the daily egg consumption of its students. This contribution reinforces the school’s role as an active partner in the initiative and promotes shared responsibility in the implementation and sustainability of the model.
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Within the initiative, CIBU, the business unit responsible for innovation and the development of new food products of Quito’s Food Bank, plays a key role. It extends the use of daily food supplies by transforming them into frozen and dehydrated products. Surplus inventory is used to create new recipes and innovative products.
Brenda Haro, a member of this unit, shares how the project has also been a transformative experience for the institution:
“The personalised support provided by the project has allowed us to improve our processes, identify new lines of action, and connect with entrepreneurs and experts. Now we know we are not alone; there are many entrepreneurs who are aware of the food waste problem,” says Brenda.
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Through the “Ideas that Nurture” initiative, Rikolto and its local partners work to ensure that school-aged children have access to healthy and sustainable food. By supporting youth entrepreneurship, the initiative strengthens food supply for schools and kiosks, promotes sustainable value chains, and supports sustainable businesses that prioritise children’s health in Ecuador.
This way, it challenges the notion that young people cannot design solutions to childhood nutrition problems, and demonstrates the importance of investing in youth as key agents of change in building a more sustainable food system.
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