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USAID disappeared. She built a coalition to feed Gaza and South Sudan
The article highlights how Edesia Nutrition, under the leadership of Navyn Salem, adapted its brand strategy in response to the disbandment of USAID and the reduction of UNICEF funding. By building a coalition of nonprofits to create a resilient supply chain for distributing life-saving food, Edesia has transformed from a manufacturer to a systems architect, showcasing the importance of flexibility and collaboration in brand strategy within the humanitarian sector.
FastCompany: In January 2025, while helping to screen children for malnutrition in Sierra Leone, Navyn Salem received a phone call with dreadful news. The U.S. government would be freezing all global humanitarian aid, effective immediately. That’s not a welcome call when your entire organization is based on manufacturing and distributing life-saving food to the world’s poorest countries devastated by conflict, disasters, and displacement. But within months, Salem would pivot the group she founded, Edesia Nutrition , to build a coalition of nonprofits to distribute the essential items, bypassing the severe restrictions imposed by the U.S. government.
Fighting malnutrition Since 2010, Salem has led Edesia, which manufactures RUTFs (ready-to-use therapeutic foods) for malnourished children: a necessity, since a child dies of malnutrition every 11 seconds. With a guiding mantra that “no child should suffer from malnutrition when the solution exists,” to date Edesia claims it has saved 30 million lives across 65 countries. These fortified peanut-based snacks, in 100-gram sachets, are calorically dense and easy to distribute from the factory in Rhode Island, which uses ingredients sourced from 17 states.
In 15 years, it has distributed life-saving snacks to the countries in most need, the top five today being Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, and DR Congo. That work came under intense threat when Donald Trump retook office in 2025, ordering a 90-day pause on foreign assistance. Later in the year, USAID was permanently disbanded, and 83% of its projects ceased. UNICEF was slashed under Elon Musk’s DOGE program, with fiscal-year funding for 2025 reduced from $142 million to zero.
USAID and UNICEF were huge and experienced organizations core to moving Edesia’s products; in June last year, Salem reported that 185,535 boxes on her warehouse floor hadn’t moved. Edesia called it “one of the most turbulent periods in humanitarian aid.” A new coalition It was clear to Edesia that this meant a “complete global reset” to the status quo. Salem sprang into action to find an entirely alternative supply chain route for the vital food products.
Using her network of private donors to help with funding, she began gathering a coalition of smaller, unrelated NGOs to work in tandem to do what the institutions like USAID and UNICEF would have usually done. For instance, to move snacks to Gaza , a notoriously hard place to maneuver due in large part to Israeli blockades, Salem gathered five NGOs, each with its own task.
Edesia itself made the products, Airlink transported them by air, IsraAID coordinated land transport from Tel Aviv to the Gaza border, Multifaith Alliance delivered them directly to families in Gaza, and the Children’s Village Gaza provided additional care to Gaza’s growing orphan population. She also replicated that model in South Sudan, with four partners collaborating to deliver 1.3 million food packets. Overall, Edesia expedited emergency nutrition in 18 countries, with the help of 240 NGOs, producing and shipping 3.5 million pounds of food, or 32 million packets, to treat 222,000 children.
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The article discusses a significant shift in brand strategy within the humanitarian sector, highlighting innovative approaches to collaboration and resilience in response to funding challenges, making it highly relevant and impactful for brand strategy professionals.