Institute For The Future

50 Cent and the Future of Empathetic Foods

 

Since one of my research beats at the Institute is to track the emergence of weird, misguided, and yet, at times, brilliant packaged foods, I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't note the recent release of a new energy shot developed by the rapper 50 Cent that is almost certainly the first energy drink released in partnership with the United Nation's World Food Programme. The concept is pretty simple: For every shot the parent company of Street King sells, it donates a meal to a hungry child.

 

Writing in Forbes, reporter Zack O' Malley describes the product--and its business model--as follows:

 

Though the Street King deal is certainly a boon for the fight against hunger in poor nations, it should also profit 50 Cent and his partners handsomely.

According to the U.N., it takes $0.10 to provide a single meal (or $0.25 for a complete package of nutritional food that includes take-home rations and additional inputs such as de-worming pills; even if you aren’t a rapper, you may donate here).

The precise breakdown is staggering. Street King retails for $2.49 to $2.99, so assuming the lofty 50% profit margin, 50 and his partners will be evenly splitting a per-unit profit of $1.15 to $1.40. Though Clarke says the company won’t be profitable for the first two years, he believes annual revenues of $300-$500 million are possible by year three; 50 says his goal is to feed one billion children.

 

 

 

Beyond the specific business model, which at a high level sounds like it makes complete sense, I was more intrigued by the long-term vision for the product Street King:

 

He believes that if Street King is successful, it will force beverage giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi to initiate similar give-back programs. The United Nations says it would cost $3.3 billion per year to feed 90 million of the world’s poorest citizens for a year, or less than one percent of all corporate profits.

“That’s a small enough amount for the shareholders of all these companies to let go,” says 50 Cent. “Going forward, I want to do things in a bigger, better way. And I think I can achieve it with this actual project.”

 

 

 

This is similar to other signals we've seen recently. Last year, I noted a WFP initiative that aimed to encourage people to eat less and donate the savings to hunger-relief initiatives; it's also reminiscent of a new initiative called Halfsies that allows consumers to buy a half-sized portion and donates 90 percent of the saved costs to hunger related nonprofits (the remaining 10 percent funds operations.)

What these initiatives are developing, in other words, is a way to fight a massive imbalance, where roughly 1 billion people simultaneously go hungry while another billion people struggle to avoid eating too much. What these concepts do is connect people--across continents and wildly divergent lives and problems--to put pressure on consumers as well as companies to look for ways to stop oversupplying the wealthy but begin to develop supplying those in need.