Jody White – SLIMDOWN 360
By: Kieran Khan | September 3rd, 2019
Jody White – SLIMDOWN 360
On completing his University studies in Management and Finance, Jody White declined a scholarship that would allow him to pursue his Masters; instead opting to begin working in the pharmaceutical sales industry. He left that career path less than two years in as he explained, “While I didn’t have an exact plan as to what kind of business I wanted to start, I knew that I had a passion for health and fitness so that it would be something in that space. I started to look for gaps in the market and soon realized that calorie-controlled meals that could be ordered online and delivered to individuals were not something that we had here in 2010. Of course, it was widespread in the US but not here,” he pointed out.
White’s brand, Slimdown 360, has since expanded to include packaged goods that are available on their website shopslimdown360.com, Amazon.com and across England and Europe as well by way of international shopping sites. Those products cater specifically to the growing gluten-free industry and include sweet potato pasta, cassava pasta and instant mashed provisions. “The advantage that we have over the foreign options in this market niche is that our products are single-ingredient ones – the sweet potato pasta for instance only contains sweet potato – no fillers or additives as some imported options include and our product is far more economical as well.” The idea to create this product range came about during the meal planning for his Slimdown 360 meal service whereby the team wanted to include gluten-free options that were more nutritious but could not find ones that would meet their needs. “It’s a process that required a lot of trial and error,” he noted, “ but today we have one of the largest indoor dehydrators in T&T. We have also established a system of working with local root crop farmers and NAMDEVCO to source our raw ingredients and also have connected with ExporTT to make use of some of their incentive programs.”
In 2018, White also participated in the Pitch@Palace – a program founded by Prince Charles, the Duke of York, to assist entrepreneurs in achieving their goals. “There is a large and growing gluten-free market in the US and UK, and we intend to capitalize on that,” White observed. “We are seeking to grow and scale in this product category but also to expand into other areas such as dehydrated fruit, sweet potato and cassava fries and more. In the interim, White along with his wife, continue to be quite successful with their meal delivery service, which started in his mother’s kitchen. “We continue to adapt and grow by offering quality service and value. We are now able to incorporate the products we create into the meals we cook in items such as cassava waffles or sweet potato muffins. It allows us to vertically integrate and improve our value chain too.
”Jody White was nominated in the Emerging Entrepreneur category of the 2018 EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Slimdown 360 is currently looking at reinventing their brand to disassociate from the notion that it is only a weight-loss meal service and continues to invest heavily in R&D.
