Rebel Ventures Works to Fight Childhood Obesity in West Philly

Meet the Disruptors: Rebel Ventures

A student-run granola bar company sought to alter its schoolhouse'south snack options. Now it'south poised to accept on the whole District

Mar. 03, 2016

Jarrett Stein of student-run granola bar company Insubordinate Ventures asks "What practise yous retrieve?" a lot. It's baked into his function every bit the adult founder and leader of Insubordinate, run past Penn students and West Philly loftier schoolers to create affordable healthy snacks and provide job training to the younger members of the crew. It'south what he says when a member of the coiffure asks which honey from the kitchens at the Middle for Culinary Enterprises to use in their recipe. And when the team wants to know when they should come in over the weekend to brainstorm new product ideas. And on a recent rainy Tuesday afternoon, at a figurer in the Eye'due south lobby, when Stein asks Zaire, a 9th grader from Parkway Westward Loftier Schoolhouse, what he thinks about an email that Rebel Ventures has received.

In that location are so many subtle skills that go into professional email correspondence, many, if not all, of which have gone underdeveloped in Zaire'southward education. Slowly and meticulously, Stein coaches him on how to mine an email address for information—this i comes from a "upenn.edu" account, meaning it's probably a student—how to format salutations and signatures, how to phrase questions politely, how to write out an address, and fifty-fifty some basic grammar skills. Repeatedly he asks the high schooler to read his email out loud, correcting overt mistakes but also request Zaire what he thinks—what exercise they need to know about potential volunteers? Should they sign off "best" or "thanks"?

This is Zaire's sixth and final trial day. He thinks he'south making a good impression. "I'll be honest, I check my telephone," he admits, although they're not supposed to do so while working, "merely I still come in and work difficult and try to get work done."

It's all in an effort to go in with Rebel Ventures, a company with a product designed to target childhood obesity in West Philly, and business organisation practices that serve to empower the young people coming out of that customs. Afterwards Zaire leaves, the other half dozen high schoolers will vote on whether or not to admit him to the team. Information technology's a select group for now. Simply a pending development with the Philadelphia School Commune would allow Insubordinate to open this unique opportunity to many more than students—and bring its healthy snacks to every public school in the city.

"Entrepreneurship is the core of what we're doing. Understanding what it means to run a business concern in the near holistic sense," Stein says. "And so we actually think most what power is. And how, if you're able to create a product and create need for that production, y'all have the power that nobody can take away from you."

Rebel Ventures is rooted in a classroom project Stein led as a teacher at George W. Pepper Middle School in 2010, during which he asked his students if their school was healthy. "They said no," Stein remembers. "I asked them why and they said considering they didn't have healthy snacks available at the school shop. So we made a healthy snack option."

Stein broke the class into two teams that and then competed to develop the healthiest and best tasting granola bar recipe to sell to fellow students. The electric current recipe—primarily a mixture of oats, honey, pumpkin seeds and mix-ins like chocolate chips or raisins—has been perfected over the years, but remains relatively faithful to what was originally created by the seventh and eighth graders. In 2012, after Pepper Eye School closed, Stein used the classroom model as the foundation of an after school program that produces and sells granola confined to schools and cafes on Penn'due south campus and around Due west Philly.

Loftier school students, who typically find Insubordinate through word of mouth, rotate through six different departments: operations, sales, accounting, research and development, marketing, and design. Every bit they gain experience with each department, the kids earn more money and mastery of technical skills similar digital photography and Microsoft Excel.

Across these technical skills—which can't be undervalued for a group of immature people whose inability to express themselves professionally could limit their potential—Stein hopes that Rebel volition instill a sense of agency in the coiffure members.

"Entrepreneurship is the core of what we're doing. Understanding what it means to run a business in the most holistic sense…how many different skills and experiences yous need to have exposure to, practice in, preparation [with], to take a concept to something that y'all tin can and so market," he says. "And and then nosotros really think about what ability is. And how, if you're able to create a product and create demand for that production, yous have the power that nobody tin can have away from you."

The high schoolers this yr are led past Corey, a charismatic senior from William L. Sayre Loftier School who has been working with Rebel for near a twelvemonth and half. "Yous ever see annihilation like this earlier?" Corey asks. He earns extra money for his leadership part, and it was a strong component of his college applications essay. "I want to go to school for business direction and so I feel similar this is just a baby step in my career," he says.

The feel is paying off already. He'southward been accepted to several schools, and has tentative plans to attend Shippensburg University in southward central Pennsylvania. He wants to stay in-state, just is eager to go out of Philly "because I don't want to go defenseless up in the chaos."

Within each section, the high schoolers work alongside Penn students, who come to Rebel from a variety of organizations, including Wharton Social Affect Initiative and the Netter Center'due south Academically Based Customs Service (ABCS) classes. Brittany Bolden, a senior attention Harvard Law School side by side year, participates as office of her work-study regimen. She oversees the operations and research and evolution departments, and has been aiding Stein in the logistical legwork of detaching Rebel from the Penn umbrella. Until at present, Rebel has been part of the Agaston Urban Diet Initiative, a program of Penn'due south Netter Center, which has subsidized salaries.

As a teacher at George Westward. Pepper Middle School in 2010, Stein asked his students if their school was good for you. "They said no," Stein remembers. "I asked them why and they said because they didn't accept healthy snacks available at the school store. So we made a healthy snack option."

Now Stein has practical to turn Rebel into a stand-alone nonprofit. Currently, selling the bars for just a dollar or two each, Rebel operates at a loss, a non-event while it'southward Penn-funded. Equally a separate entity, the company will have to earn its ain money. Only doing so will give them more financial freedom, allowing them to grow the business. (Stein says he hopes Rebel will continue to do good from Penn mentorships and work with Agaston on nutrition education.) Boden predicts that Rebel will exist an independent nonprofit by the stop of the spring semester—and information technology's likely that their first solo act volition be to scale upwardly production, in a big mode.

To succeed, Rebel volition need to brand, market, and sell many more units than they practice correct now. Stein estimates that they will need to increase output from a few hundred bars baked and packaged by students each week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, to roughly xxx,000 bars a week. To meet demand, they'll have to outsource the physical product to a manufacturing company and increase their focus on research and development, marketing and sales.

Outsourcing will beget the team the fourth dimension and resources to spend more than fourth dimension imparting basic business organisation skills, similar editing email, to even more loftier school students. "We spend a lot of fourth dimension right now folding over plastic sleeves to package our confined," Stein says. "We desire to spend more than of our time doing what we all would consider to be more avant-garde, higher-level creative output."

The team is considering many options for selling so many bars—with dreams of getting them into more grocery stores and peradventure setting upward a Daughter Scout Cookie model. Commencement, though, the crew is negotiating with the Philadelphia School Commune to create the first new Rebel product since its launch—probably some sort of healthy muffin—that will be offered equally part of the Universal Breakfast Programme.

It'south a perfect collaboration for a plan that's been fighting babyhood obesity and educational shortcomings in the city on a small scale for several years. If the expansion is successful, what started as a classroom project could become a West Philly staple from babyhood breakfasts to higher applications.

"We are a social enterprise," Stein says. "And so, running a business non but to make money but what are needs, what are problems, that nosotros can think creatively, use the access that we have, to solve these problems."

Photo: Courtesy of Rebel Ventures

---

Like what you're reading almost Rebel Ventures? Stay updated on all our coverage. Here'due south how:

• Sign up for our weekly newsletter
• Like usa on Facebook
• Follow us on Twitter
• Follow us on Instagram

Photo: Rebel Ventures

chandlerhamithen36.blogspot.com

Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/rebel-ventures-granola-bars/

Share this post