Crippling anxiety births innovative idea

Fighting to afford a healthy diet integral to fighting crippling anxiety inspired a mother of two to provide affordable organic food to all.

Sallie Francis with one of her Feel Good boxes. Photo: John McCutcheon / Sunshine Coast Daily

STRUGGLING to afford a healthy diet during crippling anxiety attacks inspired a mother of two to provide affordable organic food to other low-income families.

Feel Good Food Boxes bridges the gap between income level and accessibility of organic and chemical free food.

Feel Good Food Boxes owner and creator Sallie Francis said the idea for the social enterprise came to her after 10 anxiety filled years.

"When I was pregnant with my first born, I had massive panic attacks and anxiety which was pretty extreme … but food was one of those things that helped me get a healthy mind," she said.

"We had two girls and we were living in a rental house, on one income and eating organic, and what would happen is when we didn't have the funds organic food was the first thing to go.

"So, I wanted to create Feel Good Food Boxes to make organics more accessible."

To do so, the innovative business used a new business model that automatically paid products forward.

"We provide organic produce, whole foods and zero waste pantry essentials at competitive prices and for every market value subscription sold we then make the produce available for low to medium-income households at a heavily subsided rate," Ms Francis said.

"So, people under 65k will get their produce for 30 per cent off, and people in-between 65k and 85k will get 20 per cent off, so they are getting organic produce for the price of what they would pay at Coles and Woolies for conventual veggies.

"Fifty per cent of our customers are market value customers. So they are just paying the normal price and then we will have 50 per cent low to medium-income earners that will be accessing subsidised prices.

"And the market value people aren't paying any premiums and they are not subsidising the lower income boxes. We take that from our revenue and we subsidise the boxes."

Easily purchased online and delivered to your door, customers can choose to build their own box of wholesome ingredients or select from set boxes.

Mrs Francis hoped providing easy and affordable access to healthy food would help other people who struggled with mental illness.

"I think having access and having that choice and not having to worry about that side of things so they can concentrate on their mental health and have the best available to help fuel their recovering means everything to me," she said.

"Through the mental health system a lot of people get lost and when you are on a lower income it can be difficult to access the very best and I think food shouldn't be one of those things that is only available for the people that can afford it."

For more information or to order a Feel Good Food Box visit:https://feelgoodfoodboxes.com/pages/faqs