The following blog post was written by Alice Lam and was published earlier this week on BCIC’s blog as part of a series profiling BCIC-NewVentures Competition: Regional Top 20 Finalists.
Approximately 20 per cent of the world’s population lives with dietary restrictions due to food allergies and medical issues. The new JuliasWild.com website offers tools, tips, information and more than 100,000 recipes for living with allergies and dietary restrictions. Users will be able to search the database through standard recipe criteria and at the same time eliminate ingredients based on common allergens and dietary types.
The idea for the site came from the personal experiences and frustrations of company team members who couldn’t easily find suitable recipes for restricted diets. They say that entering the BCIC-New Ventures Competition: Regional was an excellent opportunity to move their idea forward and meet other entrepreneurs and experienced business professionals in the community.
“The competition has made us focus on our business model, reinforced our strengths and offered us a critical look at areas we can improve,” said Erlene Armero, founder and project lead, JuliasWild.com.
“Our goal is to launch in the spring of 2011 and we hope to see 100,000 registered users by the end of the year.”
The Victoria-based team also plans to build a 100-mile diet feature that pinpoints local producers and locally available preservative-free foods.
Congratulations to JuliasWild.com and we wish you the best of luck in the last round of the competition. Winners of the BCIC-NVC: Regional will be announced on February 24, 2011. Stay tuned.