Food Fight: Business-savvy Cashmere students' card game takes off

Four Christchurch high school students are on a mission to educate children about what really goes into their food.

Food Fight is a fun, educational card game created by Cashmere High School year 13 students Oakley Inkersell, Rosa Kelly, Aljaž Smrekar and Jack Carran in response to child obesity in New Zealand.

Their Young Enterprise Scheme business studies project has been such a hit in the last few months that it can now be found in selected supermarkets and schools.

Inkersell is Food Fight's chief executive: “When I was younger I was overweight and I didn’t know anything about nutrition," he said.

"I wish I had a resource like Food Fight to educate me as a kid and to know what it did to my body.”

Kelly said there was not enough education in schools in relation to nutrition.

“It’s one of the core problems for the child obesity crisis in New Zealand,” she said.

“With this game, we feel like it’s a fun and interactive way to teach kids about nutrition and in schools, children will have more control over their health.”

The students wanted to promote balance – no food had a positive or negative connotation in the game, rather it was about presenting the reasl facts and allowing children to make educated choices about their diet.

Each of the 52 cards incorporated te reo Māori and contained a picture of food typically eaten by children, such as fruit, sandwiches, mince pies or ice cream.

What followed was a real breakdown of nutrients in the food, including calories and fat and sugar content.

Food Fight used this information to form a game in a similar style to the Top Trumps card game. The aim is to have the most cards received off of other players by winning rounds.

Said Oakley: “You win rounds by battling with the categories on the cards, which are calories, fat, protein, carbs, sugar and price. The person with the highest or lowest statistic, depending on what category, wins that round.”

In spite of the Food Fight team heading off to Canterbury University next year, they were still keen on seeing the business grow.

So far about 120 decks have been sold to parents, teachers and businesses, with growing interest from doctors who saw it as a tool that could be prescribed. Each card contain real-life statistics. 

“We’ve also been contacted by parents of children with type 1 diabetes who said that Food Fight has been perfect for helping their kids learn about how much sugar is in their favourite food,” Oakley said.

• More information about Food Fight can be found here.