ANGELA VU
Monash University
Gitanjali Bedi
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Crêpes for Change’s innovation is being Australia’s first social enterprise food truck. The truck’s profits are used to alleviate the issue of youth homelessness in Australia. CFC's innovation addresses the following SDGs of: good health and well-being, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities and responsible consumption and production.
Dan Poole, alongside his brother Liam Poole started this social enterprise in 2015. CFC was funded via a crowdfunding campaign as well as a few grants from organisations and is now self-sustainable. The food truck travels around to numerous events in Melbourne and the surrounding areas in Victoria throughout the year and has even been a part of the catering for a private wedding!
The food truck is managed by Liam, with each individual crêpe being lovingly produced by the group of CFC volunteers. The profits derived from the food truck enables CFC to train homeless youth to become baristas as well as providing subsidised housing alongside their partnership with Launch Housing.
The reason behind the choice to operate a food truck specialising in crêpes was due to Dan's love of the French dessert and his passion to reduce and ultimately, eliminate youth homelessness in Australia.
In pursuit of this vision, CFC have four pillars of sustainable change: housing, education, confidence and employment. These four pillars are utilised by CFC's executive team when deciding what business decisions will be the most impactful.
In conjunction to these four pillars, CFC has formed invaluable partnership with organisations such as Three Bears, Launch Housing, Eat Up Australia, JOCO and Reground. These four pillars and partnerships have enabled CFC to expand their enterprise to include a permanent coffee cart, 'The Coffee Cart Changing Lives' and a small cafe, 'home.one'. CFC believe in "harnessing the power of social enterprise and utilising the business model to create change" and "giving people the power they didn't know they had".
CFC's innovation has resulted in a positive impact, which is evidenced in their various donations, participation in youth summits and growth of their social enterprise.
CFC's short-term goal is to empower youth and increase community engagement and their long term goal is to evolve the business and create new enterprises in order to have more paid staff, which aligns with their pillar of employment for sustainable change. CFC made their first "impact donation" of $20,000 in August 2016 to Launch Housing, with an additional $17,000 donated as of August 2017.
In May 2017, CFC employed their first three Launch Housing youths to work in the food truck. Another first was achieved in June 2017, with CFC making their first "social impact loan" of $2,000 to Three Bears. CFC capped off the 2016-2017 financial year with a residual profit of $25,000 which will be utilised for their next "impact donation".
Their partnership with Jetstar has allowed CFC to fly 11 Northern Territory based social entrepreneurs to Melbourne for their 'NT Youth Homelessness Summit'. Finally, CFC opened their cafe 'home.one' in early 2018 which has allowed them to train more homeless youth, offer more paid employment and add another source of profit generation for this social enterprise.
CFC managed to record over $150,000 in revenue for the 2016-2017 financial year. As mentioned previously, they hired 3 employees to work in their food truck from Launch Housing. This allowed them to align their business objectives with their four pillars. These employees from Launch Housing are being provided with subsidised housing and as they are being paid for their efforts, employment.
CFC is a youth driven social enterprise and thus they wish to continue addressing youth homelessness. CFC believes employment has flow on benefits of developing not only the hard skill of making crêpes but also the development of the soft skills of self-confidence and communication. CFC understands that by aligning to their four pillars of sustainable change in business decisions, they maximise their employee and volunteers’ well-being.
The revenue generated from the food truck has opened up the opportunity to expand their business to the coffee cart and the cafe, thereby increasing CFC’s product offerings and services across their enterprises and also enables increased community engagement.
CFC have learnt as they have grown and expanded and have applied their knowledge across all three enterprises. The positive societal impact CFC has made is through their continued partnerships with Launch Housing and Eat Up Australia. Through their donations of their profits to these two organisations, they have reduced youth homelessness, as well as provide lunch to the 10.9% of Australian children who live in poverty.
As sustainable change has been a key factor in CFC’s operations, they have applied this to their coffee cart and cafe enterprises. The coffee cart has partnered with Reground to redirect their coffee grounds from being waste into being used as soil and other compositing uses. In regards to home.one, it is the first cafe in Australia to be 100% fossil fuel free, offer a completely vegetarian menu and have minimal food wastage due to the use of a compost bin and worm farm.
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Levi O'Neill-Fernandez, Chief Impact Officer
Sophie Souchon, Impact Officer
Crêpes for Change(CFC) is a Melbourne based social enterprise founded by Dan Poole and since 2015 has been operating as a food truck specialising in crêpes. The food truck caters to various events in Victoria from night markets to private functions.