Dohmen Company Foundation Invests in School Food to Prevent Diet-Related Illness
Pictured: Elementary student at Eat Real Certified Green Western Placer Unified School District
Big news for school food and for kids nationwide!
Eat Real has received a $3 million, three-year investment from Dohmen Company Foundation, a private foundation guided by a vision of life without diet-related disease, to expand our K-12 Certification Program and launch new research on how better school meals impact children’s health and behavior.
This is our largest investment to date, and it comes at a critical moment.
Why School Food Is a Public Health Lever
Every day, 30 million children rely on school meals. For many, school food makes up half — or more — of their daily calories.
Meanwhile
- 67% of their calories come from ultra-processed foods*
- 1 in 5 U.S. children is considered obese, but this figure rises to 1 in 3 in lower income neighborhoods**
- Kids today have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and fatty liver disease***
If we want to prevent diet-related disease, we have to start where kids eat.
And that’s at school.
Expanding What Works
Eat Real’s data-driven K-12 Certification Program equips school nutrition leaders with the framework and analysis to make menus more nutritious, delicious, and responsibly sourced.
With this investment, we will:
- Reach an additional 1 million students
- Expand in high-need states
- Expand our capacity to serve high-impact districts (enrollments of 100k+ students)
Public schools are the largest restaurant chain in America. Changing the menu changes health outcomes at scale.
Measuring What Matters: Launching New Research
This partnership goes beyond expansion.
Together with Dohmen Company Foundation, Eat Real will launch research initiatives to evaluate how improved school nutrition impacts:
- Student behavior in and out of the classroom
- Mental health outcomes
- Metabolic health markers
We believe better food doesn’t just improve physical health — it supports focus, mood, and long-term well-being. Now, we’re building the evidence to connect measurable improvements in diet quality to measurable improvements in children’s overall health.
A Tipping Point for Prevention
Our shared goal is bold: eradicate diet-related disease before it starts.
Prevention doesn’t begin in a clinic. It begins on a cafeteria tray.
This investment allows us to scale proven solutions while building the research foundation to drive policy, funding, and long-term systems change.
The future of children’s health is being shaped every day at lunch.
We’re here to make sure what’s on the plate supports what’s possible.
About the Dohmen Company Foundation
With more than 165 years of healthcare experience, Dohmen has found a way to combine the rigor of business with the heart of philanthropy. After exiting the life science industry in 2018, Dohmen shareholders transformed the multi-generational family-owned business to a private foundation. Today, Dohmen Company Foundation advances its vision of life without diet-related disease in three powerful ways via: its investment fund focused on accelerating the growth of for-profit social businesses with proven food solutions that improve human health, traditional grant making dedicated to increasing the impact of charitable organizations aligned with our vision, and through research and public awareness of the surging rates of diet-related disease that threaten our national wellbeing. For more information, please visit dohmencompanyfoundation.org.
* Source: Tufts Daily (Tufts University)
** Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
*** Source: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
