Peqish Food Company - Promoting Healthier Eating Habits to Younger Generations

Peqish Food Company is a culinary medicine company that leverages health and clinical evidence to create delicious recipes that taste great and nutritious. Their team of clinical and scientific experts focuses on revolutionizing today's food by keeping it natural, simple and real. Dr. Anthony Marotta, Peqish’s CEO and Clinical Scientist, Rheumatology, partnered with a number of students in Riipen’s Level UP remote internship program to work on a variety of projects for the company, including Verda Anwer, a Commerce student at McMaster University, and Aisha Ghulam, a Public Administration student at the University of Saskatchewan.

Over the course of their respective 8-week projects, Aisha tackled the development of a marketing strategy and awareness campaign for food-related illnesses, while Verda undertook the creation of digital content, such as articles and blog posts, in line with Peqish's vision, mission and industry. 

Dr. Marotta wanted to have some market research carried out with the goal of broadening Peqish’s reach to a younger demographic, based on studies that young people are more likely than older demographics to change their eating habits to be more nutritious. Aisha worked on providing Anthony with research-based documentation on potential communication strategies, social media messaging examples (primarily through Instagram), and key outcomes.

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Verda then took Aisha’s research and campaign strategies and utilized them to create digital content to share on Peqish’s social media accounts. She found that working in a field separate from her commerce background was an exciting way to expand her knowledge and augment her education. Furthermore, having only worked as a cashier in the past, she could now add her valuable experience with Peqish to her resume. Verda did not hesitate to recommend the Level UP program to her classmates, given the opportunity to work on real-world projects, gain experience and have the possibility of future employment opportunities.

During their Level UP internships, Aisha and Verda were able to put to use what they learned in school, develop new skills, and gain valuable work experience. Furthermore, as a result of their hard work, and the level of excellence that they both demonstrated throughout their projects with Peqish, Dr. Marotta hired both Aisha and Verda in part-time roles at the company after they completed their internships.

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Dr. Anthony Marotta, Peqish’s CEO, shares the impact of the Level UP remote internship program from the employer perspective, how the program's subsidies help SMEs hire interns and allow them to provide hands-on experience to students, and talks about some students who have gone on to work for the company after their project.

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Thank you to Aisha and Verda for sharing their experience on Riipen. To learn more about how you can get started with the Level UP remote internship program as a student or employer, visit the website here. ‍Stay up to date with the latest in higher education, experiential learning, and the future of work, subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, The Riipen Report.

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Riipen Level UP program is funded by the Government of Canada's Innovative Work-Integrated Learning (I-WIL) Initiatives program. The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.

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