Accelerace invests in Chew, an interactive cooking platform for kids

Accelerace invests in Chew, an Oslo-based interactive online platform with food-related content to educate, inspire and encourage kids aged 6-14 to have a healthier relationship with food and to develop their cooking skills.  

Involving kids in the entire cooking process 

“Finish your vegetable” is probably one of the most repeated phrases for parents worldwide. Getting children to eat a healthy and varied diet is a constant struggle for parents and results in frustration, stress, and unpleasant situations at the dinner table — for both sides. 

This is where Chew enters the chat. Chew is a subscription-based interactive cooking platform where kids can develop their cooking skills and increase their knowledge about proper nutrition through cooking videos, quizzes, and other gamification elements. It goes beyond following recipes and includes everything from cutting techniques to food waste reduction to safety and hygiene in the kitchen. 

Research shows that kids are more open to healthy eating habits and trying new foods when they are involved in the entire cooking process. Unsurprisingly, promoting healthy eating habits at a young age has a significant impact on health and well-being later in life, if done in a mindful way. Mano Rashidi, Co-founder and CEO at Chew, emphasizes the importance of building meaningful and responsible platforms when targeting kids: 

“Our approach is to create a platform on the kids’ terms. We have a generation which, in many ways, have more unhealthy habits with inactive and passive consumption of content through various platforms and social media. We are also extremely focused on not talking about food as healthy vs unhealthy, calories or what not to eat. We believe this can have detrimental effects on kids’ relation to food and create more problems.”

Mano Rashidi, Co-founder and CEO at Chew

Mano founded Chew in 2021 together with Silje Rosness Dahle.  

Parental frustration turned into a promising startup 

Being parents themselves, Mano and Silje turned their own frustration into a strong motivation, combined it with years of experience in commercial strategies, digital marketing and business development, and decided to build a product that naturally would involve kids in the entire cooking process: 

“Involving kids in various aspects of food, such as planning weekly meals and what to have in their school lunchbox, grocery shopping, preparing and cooking etc., makes the process simpler and less stressful for the parents and the family. Research has shown that involvement is key in order to encourage kids to eat more varied and be positive to try new dishes and recipes.”

Mano Rashidi, Co-founder and CEO at Chew

Accelerace believes that building a contemporary kids-native product, which relies heavily on social and interactive elements instead of a legacy e-learning universe, is the right way to approach kids today.

Chew is currently collaborating with Christer Rødseth, a famous Norwegian chef and TV host, for the cooking videos. In the future, the plan is to invite numerous food influencers and chefs to create their own cooking courses on Chew — and get more kids involved in the kitchen.