In Forbes, an ‘advocate of fruits and vegetables’

Forbes dining employee Steve Nathan’s work on food doesn’t stop at the brick building on Alexander Street: He’s also bringing food to our cell phones and the Internet. Nathan has started a nonprofit organization named Nutrienz, focused on increasing awareness about nutrition and diet using mobile and social network technology.

“The whole goal of the organization is really to bring consciousness to our eating choices, and it is based around using the latest technology,” Nathan said. “Many of us choose to eat what we like to eat, and the consequences down the road are more than we like to think about.”

Though still in its early stages, Nutrienz aims to build momentum through three main projects: a social networking website, a mobile QR code campaign and collective farming sites according to Nathan. All of these projects are aimed at engaging the local and global communities around a central hub of nutrients.

“Our goal is to get more and more people together and build a network through a variety of different projects,” Nathan said.

Nathan said he was motivated to found Nutrienz because of his background in mobile marketing and his insight into the food industry. He added that he sought an innovative intersection of both interests.

“I have always been an advocate of fruits and vegetables,” he said. “I partnered up with the [U.S. Department of Agriculture] to do another mobile technology program, which received lukewarm results. That experience helped me put all the components into one new format.”

The organization’s official website launched over a month ago and allows visitors to register, create a profile and join discussions about a variety of nutrition topics. Additional features include a list of latest food recalls, a blog with nutrition tips and a list of local nutrition-related events.

For the time being, Nathan said he is relying on word of mouth to spread the news about Nutrienz. The website currently has 50 to 60 users, many of whom are students from Forbes. However, he added that he has plans to increase online traffic through greater networking and advertising.

“Just people signing on [to the website] is a sign of great support for me,” he said, “The more who sign on, the more momentum we will have when seeking funding and the more the food industry will want to get involved.”

Nathan said he also hopes to have Nutrienz’ QR mobile code campaign running within a few months. QR codes are matrix barcodes that can be read by cell phone cameras and used to access links, images, videos and text. Nathan said he has been developing a series on fruits and vegetables.

“We want to bring [the QR code campaign] into as many supermarkets as we can,” he said. “The codes will be located next to each food item and will take a feature-benefit type of format that lists the nutritional value of each item and the positive effects it has on health.”

Nathan added that the mobile campaigns provide good metrics to determine how effectively a message is being spread.

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“With newspaper ads, you have no way of tracking how many people have viewed them, who those people are and their interests,” he explained.

But Nathan added that he is also concerned that the demographics with which he must work may not yet fully appreciate the power of mobile marketing.

“Most storeowners are not in the age group to see the value of mobile,” he said, adding that mobile marketing is definitely “here to stay.”

While the technology aspect of Nutrienz provides a quantifiable metric of the success of the organization, Nathan said the biggest accomplishment of the campaign will be to engage the public in collective farming activities that foster a common interest in nutrition and farming.

“We are trying to get big industry to fund nonprofit farms, and we want to take produce from the farms and give it to the shelters and food banks,” he said. “We are trying to keep it sustainable, organic and educational. We would like to bring in students and do hands-on activities with them that are similar in theme to those of Habitat for Humanity.”

But Nathan won’t stop there. He said he hopes to start a pilot community farm in the Princeton Township in early spring and eventually collaborate with University engineering students to develop innovative strategies for sustainability and drainage.