(PRWEB) July 09, 2013
On top of the aggravation that parents face on a daily basis between work and personal priorities, they have to worry about getting a nutritious meal on the table every evening. Beyond the juggling of daily tasks, parents have to worry about feeding their kids healthy meals daily, especially as the statistics of childhood obesity are rising. Parents may feel pressure to find a nutritious recipe, go to the grocery store to get the ingredients, only to head home realize that they forgot to buy olive oil or discover that there is not enough chicken to feed their family of five.
Getting a healthy meal on the table for a family shouldn’t be this complicated. Now it doesn’t have to be. What if parents could leave their workplace with all of the ingredients, in perfect quantities, in hand to make a perfectly nutritious meal every night of the week? Now they can. With Fitly, a Philadelphia-based, DreamIt Health startup, parents can choose from a variety of USDA’s My Plate and Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate approved meals with a quick sign up on fitly.org.
Fitly is addressing the childhood obesity epidemic at its core by providing families with a free and convenient delivery service of healthy ingredients and meal prepping instructions to convenient pick-up locations, including workplaces, schools, and recreation centers in your neighborhood.
"Our primary purpose is to help millions of parents get healthy food on the table quickly for their children each night,” said Anthony Ortiz, founder and CEO of Fitly. “As a busy dad, I know the struggles other parents have to go through to make a delicious home-cooked meal and how convenient it is to settle for pizza, hot pockets or worst yet - the drive-through at McDonald's! We are bringing you all the convenience of a fast food restaurant without all the grease, saturated fats & loaded calories."
Anthony Ortiz was inspired to find a way to make healthy eating fun for kids and their parents after witnessing his nephews’ unhealthy eating habits, his brother and sister-in-law struggle with obesity, and his own father suffer through triple bypass surgery. In Fitly’s collaboration with DreamIt Health, they strive to find a solution to today’s health problems, while also making meal planning easier and more convenient.
“Fitly has made very considerable progress on its business model in a short time as part of the DreamIt Accelerator, and this simple, but powerful, solution to a pressing health care concern is exciting,” said Mike Vennera, vice president of Innovation and Strategy for Independence Blue Cross, a primary sponsor of the DreamIt Accelerator. “We’ll be following their product launch very closely and will continue to provide mentoring and other support as much as possible. We very much want to see them succeed.”
"We're so excited to have the support of such amazing partners. All of which have been instrumental in helping us develop a product that will revolutionize the way people currently do their grocery shopping." said Ortiz.
Fitly is also looking to partner with businesses that have available parking space and are interested in becoming a pickup location. Businesses can benefit from drawing new customers to their location and increasing revenues through Fitly added incentives while also offering an appealing service to their existing business. All a business needs to do is sign up 20 families to 'unlock' the location and Fitly will begin taking orders for that site. The Little Gym in Abington, PA has joined the pilot and will be signing up parents today.
"Fitly presented us with a great partnership opportunity and the synergies were quite clear. Our purpose is to bring the confidence out in kids early on through innovative fitness classes and nutrition is paramount to yield optimal results in children,” said Catie Haig, owner of The Little Gym in Abington.
The Fitly team, in conjunction with The Fresh Grocer, hand picks the needed groceries and delivers them to a location that parents visit anyway on a daily basis. From there, families can have fun in the kitchen as they prepare their new healthy dishes.
By supplying the ingredients in exact quantities necessary to make each dish, Fitly hopes to turn dinner preparation into an activity that is simple, convenient, and healthy for everyone. By taking out the tedious guesswork and frustration commonly associated with meal planning, Fitly strives to keep kids engaged and motivated to eat well. In addition to the pleasure that will come along with making dinner, Fitly will be offering weekly competitions and prizes that reward kids for making healthy choices.
Fitly is a mobile/web application that can be accessed from any mobile device. With the app, families can order their groceries, check out weekly meals and nutritional information, and keep up to date with all of Fitly’s fun activities.
Today, July 9th, Fitly is launching its 5-month pilot with its leading partners Independence Blue Cross, Penn Medicine, Fresh Grocer, DreamIt Health, and The Little Gym.
To support the pilot through its duration, Fitly launched a crowd funding campaign today with Indiegogo. As an added bonus, those who pledge (including employers & brands) have the opportunity to win a lifetime subscription to Fitly’s meal planner and get kudos on their website for supporting their project.