Throughout the next couple of weeks, we will be highlighting winners of the Discovery Stage of the E-cup competition who took a Social Entrepreneurship angle to their ventures. The Discovery Stage is the second stage of the competition, where finalists percent how their product/service aligns with customer needs and “de-risk” their idea. We are proud to have changemaker classmates among us and want to celebrate their efforts as they continue forward to build their businesses with newly-acquired funding. Read on below to get to know ElderEats, a new start-up aimed at providing diverse cuisine solutions for aging seniors.

 

Who is on the team?

Jeremy Suh

School: UVA SEAS 2025

Hometown: Stone Ridge, Virginia

 

Zachary Suh (High Schooler @ John Champe)  

Instagram: @ZachInTheKitchen

 

Introduction to the Problem

The sweet scent of honey and soy-sauce floats through the air. Tupperware overflowing with rice and dried seaweed are packed shut and are neatly loaded into boxes with a couple of frozen Korean yogurts. I watch my brother sneak a yogurt out of the box saying he needs “one for the road” as we load the car to begin driving. As my Dad jams to his usual classic rock music, I watch my Mom reminiscently look out the window, as she often does on these rides. We finally get to our destination and my family carries all of our warm tupperware into a seemingly regular suburban home. 

As we step inside, my Mom springs to life as we all give our most enthusiastic greetings. The food is unpacked and it feels that we are all at home, once again, with my Grandma. 

About once every month, my family visits my Grandma at her senior care center. Despite my parents' best efforts, my Grandma’s Alzheimer’s has gotten to the point where she needs better care than we could offer at our house. After spending months upon months of visiting different centers, my Mom finally landed on a nice home about an hour north of our home. While they do offer excellent care to my Grandma, one of the things that my Grandma misses the most is the familiar taste of the food she ate at home. For us, we love making the trip down to visit my Grandma, but for the 29 days of the month that we aren’t there, she still has to eat unfamiliar food.

 

What is the problem you are trying to solve? 

Over the past decade, the elderly population in the US has increased rapidly from 15% of the population to 20% [1]. In addition to this increase, the elderly population is expected to become more diverse, going from 77% white to 55% over the next 20 years [2]. And currently, senior care homes have still not adapted to the influx of various cultures who have foods that still play a pivotal role in making them feel like “home”. 

 

What is your solution?

ElderEats operates as both a B2B and consumer facing solution that makes it easier to offer culturally diverse foods to their residents. ElderEats does that by offering meal-plan/snack services that supplement the traditional day-to-day meals that are cooked by the resident care-takers. Additionally, ElderEats gives the option for families to send culturally significant snacks as gifts to their elders in a fast and seamless way. 

A view of the mobile ordering app.

 

What is the progress you have made so far? 

Prototyped application, figured out what nearby restaurants would be great candidates to aid in a food delivery program. Spoke with potential stakeholders and also reached out to local senior care centers. Built a meal plan as our MVP using hand-crafted recipes that fit the dietary restrictions of elderly citizens. 

Example Meal Plan:

Sample meals prepped by our own Chef Zach

What are you planning on doing with your winnings and what next steps will you take?

Among the 6 restaurants we plan on partnering with, after some negotiation we were able to get the average cost per meal per resident down to approximately ~$9 as long as we were buying for 5+ residents. We are also researching a cultural snack box option that will allow us to ship our product nation-wide. For the meal delivery option, our previous feedback indicates that it would be best to run our meals two times a week on Monday’s and Friday’s. So if you know any senior care centers near you with boring food options, email me @ suhjeremy@gmail.com! 

 

What were the main challenges and successes you encountered during your process and what have you learned?

Regardless of who you are, building a startup is hard. Since this was not our first stab at building a business, we ran into the usual challenges of finding customer personas that we needed to target and figuring out an optimal distribution strategy. At the end of the day, these problems were solved by the all-too-familiar persistence and humility to understand where we went wrong so that we could adapt.  

However, for most people I would say that getting started is even harder, especially on your own. If you are interested in building a startup, reach out to ehouse.uva@gmail.com! eHouse @ UVA is an entrepreneurial co-living community that supports student leaders interested in building the future. The core idea of the eHouse is that new technologies are the ingredients startup ideas are made of, and conversations with friends are the kitchen they're cooked in. We’ll give you access to any and every resource you need to make your idea into a reality. State-of-the-art tools, the best mentors and advisors to help you sharpen your skills, and access to investors who can turn your college side-project into the next Reddit. Best of all, you’ll be surrounded by a diverse cohort of students that have the talent and determination to change the world around them. 

 

Citations: 

1. https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united-states/
2. https://www.census.gov/topics/population/older-aging.html