Media Release
Parent’s of tube-fed child launch Australia’s only whole food meal replacement for tube fed people, with the hope of giving something back to the community.
DATE - October 2022
It is estimated that currently 50,000 Australians require feeding via a tube due to any one of over 300 different medical conditions. Until now, these Australian’s had limited access to nourishing, ready-made, shelf-stable, real food formulas. Some opt to import from markets like the US or Europe at a cost of over $1200 per month or else cook and blend their own daily.
Enrich is Whole Enteral’s, first offering in the market and is a ready made, nutritionally balanced and commercially sterile real food tube blend that can be delivered in bulk direct to the home (www.whole.net.au). Whole Enteral is the passion project and brainchild of Sydneysiders Ali and Anthony Howell, who have a daughter that required tube feeding; along with Speech Pathologist Emily Lively and husband, Gary Lively from Adelaide.
Tube feeding is the delivery of a liquid form of nourishment to your body, through a flexible tube which could be inserted through your nose to your stomach (e.g. nasogastric (NG) tube), or via a surgical insertion directly to your stomach (e.g. percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG)).
Ali and Anthony Howell understand the challenges of caring for a tube fed child all too well. Their 8 year old daughter Saskia lives with Kabuki Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that caused considerable medical issues since birth and required her to be tube fed for the first three years of her life. After becoming disillusioned with the existing ready-made tube feed formulas, whose ingredient lists typically didn’t contain one wholefood ingredient, they started blending their own food for tube feeding.
The Howell’s and Lively’s journey together started when the Howell’s took Saskia, to see Emily in her role as Paediatric Speech Pathologist, for her intensive tube weaning program. After years of getting her sole source of nutrition via enteral feeds, one week with Emily and Saskia was progressively weaned off the tube and today is completely orally fed. Despite their daughter no longer requiring enteral feeding, the Howell’s recognised the need for a product such as Enrich on the Australia market, and persevered with product development. “This was a passion project from the start, and what drove us through those hard years of product development was the goal of giving back to the community”, says Ali Howell.
“We were spending hours in the kitchen cooking and blending food daily just to ensure Saskia was getting nutritious food just like her brother and us, and we thought, it shouldn’t be this hard. We started wondering why there wasn’t a product available on the Australian market and our goal became simple; real food for tube fed people, because every tube deserves real food,” said Ali Howell.
PHD candidate and Paediatric Speech Pathologist Emily Lively said, “I’ve been seeing the positive results that home-blend food has on tube fed children that I treat for some time now. Children’s skin and hair condition improves, digestive issues abate, irritability and sleep can often be improved. However, I’m also mindful of prescribing the laborious task of home-blended food to the list of responsibilities these overwhelmed parents and carers already have for their child.”
The partnership of lived experience and clinical knowledge was the energy and capability behind the four year journey of product development by the Lively’s and Howell’s. Whole Enteral’s ‘ENRICH’ product is a plant based meal replacement suitable from child to adult. It meets dietitian nutritional guidelines, has the correct viscosity to be fed through a tube and meets the Australian & New Zealand Food Standards for formulated meal replacement. Please refer to our product information sheet attached and our website for more product information.
Whole Enteral is dedicated to changing the way people in Australia are tube fed. Their aim is to bring customers, at any age, a nutritionally balanced, commercially sterile ready-made real food meal replacement that can be delivered in bulk to the home.
For sample requests, interviews, hi-res imagery or further information, please contact:
Ali Howell: M 0416974695 E ali@whole.net.au