WelCom November 2021
Hannah Mclellan
Five, Year 12 St Mary’s College students have launched a small business venture that promotes nutrition and sustainability. Known as ‘Sprout It’, the company has developed a kit – selling at $22 each – containing ingredients to grow a range of micro-edible seedlings.
We developed our venture as an entry for a Young Enterprise competition – the national educational scheme that gives secondary school students a platform to start their own business and gain experience from the business world.
Our hands-on business team are passionate about nutritional eating. Our microgreen growing kit nurtures seeds for harvesting as mature seedlings, which are added directly to food as microgreens. We have developed the kits to be sustainable – everything is recycled, biodegradable or reusable. The mats in the kit are upcycled from pre-used insulation food bags made from New Zealand wool and the container is reusable. The kit comes with recipes and seed cards aligned with the microgreens that are grown. Refill kits are also available, which enable the container to be restocked with three mats and three seed packets with seed cards.
Our hope and vision is, one day, everyone will have access to a balanced diet and knowledge of proper nutrition and the importance of caring for our environment.
To support our sustainability vision, our company will donate part of our profits to Kiwi Harvest, which provides meals to people who do not have access to healthy eating.
Another priority for us is to reduce plastic waste – especially in food packaging. When food is grown directly at source, it cuts out packaging for storage and transport, and shows exactly what’s going into the food. With everything in our kits being reusable, recycled or biodegradable, growing and ‘selling’ food in this way also helps to reduce our business’ carbon footprint.
Please order one of our kits! Go to our website: www.sprout-it.co.nz or email us at sprout.it2021@gmail.com to purchase a kit.
Hannah Mclellan, Year 12 student, St Mary’s College, Wellington.