The Tianguis Nocturno

Mexico is notorious for its delicious street food but recently health organizations have ranked Mexico as the leader in child obesity. In particular, Mexico City’s child obesity rates increased as a result of its fast-paced lifestyle and lack of affordable and healthy alimentary options. 

Street food is often city dwellers’ affordable, go-to option, especially in a city where time is of the essence. What if we could make healthy food not only more accessible but also cultivate awareness, strengthen community tissue and boost local economies. 

The Tianguis Nocturno will integrate entrepreneurship, dietary education and community engagement into the traditional street market model and adapt to the busy lifestyle of Mexico City’s most populous neighborhoods. This project targets guardians who do not have time to cook elaborate, healthy meals or go to local markets, as they are the ones that can truly impact a child’s daily routine and imprint life-long habits.

Mexico currently ranks as the second country with the highest obesity rates. It is estimated that 32.4% of its total population is either overweight or obese. Mexico also has the highest number of obese children in the world. These children are 3.7 times more likely to become obese adults. Unfortunately, obesity usually develops into diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. 

Obesity and its related health complications have become the main cause of death adults. Currently, these diseases represent the largest problem faced by the country’s public healthcare system in terms of monetary expenses and facility occupations. While the average Mexican can only afford to spend around US$1,034 on their health every year, US$412 represents an out-of-pocket-expense. 

The treatment cost for a person classified as obese or pre-diabetic can reach up to US$99,300 throughout a 30-year span. However, it is 21 times less costly for a person who has developed a disease resulting from obesity to change their habits than spending on treatment. The Tianguis Nocturno will tackle this issue through prevention, triggering a cultural change rather than addressing the problem once it has already developed.

Research has revealed that healthy diets in early childhood stages can have a long-term impact on the development of a child’s full potential. While this project aims to serve people across all geographic regions and socioeconomic segments, its main goal will be preventing obesity-related diseases on school-aged children by targeting economically-vulnerable parents and guardians lacking the time and financial resources to cook and provide affordable nutritional food for their children.

On the other hand, small or independent raw food vendors struggle to position their products against price-competitive but nutritionally lacking fast and processed food. These vendors often operate with little more than empirical knowledge to carry out marketing or entrepreneurship activities. By addressing the needs of both groups, this project will develop a self-sustaining circular business model to  fulfill the alimentary requirements of children and develop the untampered business potential for small vendors. 

El Tianguis Nocturno provides all the benefits of a farmer’s market in a convenient after-work schedule in economically underdeveloped neighborhoods. This shopping format aims to provide families with the quality, variety and competitive prices street markets offer during working hours. By guaranteeing an after-dark safe shopping environment, The Tianguis Nocturno will provide the environment for communities to cultivate health and nutrition literacy. Simultaneously, attending families will be able to engage in the local cultural, recreational, artistic and physical activities to promote physical activity rather than remaining in the sedentary isolation resulting from high gym fees and long commute times. 

The Tianguis Nocturno also provides market vendors with the marketing and entrepreneurship skills to develop highly-nutritional and convenient product formats and services to ease parent’s responsibility for feeding their children while allowing them to compete against industrialized junk food trends.

In a similar structure to MOOC’s, The Tianguis Nocturno will deliver virtual and on-site entrepreneurship training through social media platforms, Mexico’s most affordable and widely available communication format. 

By establishing partnerships with healthcare, sports, alimentary, and governmental entities, The Tianguis Nocturno will evolve into a self-sustaining, replicable and scalable model for local businesses to market their products and solutions while addressing their social responsibilities to the community.

• This business model stems from already successful formalized street markets and actually adapting it to the time and lifestyles of citizens. The Tianguis Nocturno innovates because it not only aims to help decrease obesity rates, but also strengthen communities all together by providing a community space in the evening for families. 

• In comparison to traditional markets, this takes vendors and businesses from that community and empowers them by giving them the right tools and support to expand their business and provide better products. 

• The Tianguis Nocturno will help introduce healthier eating habits to the community and bring in local teachers, nutritionists and other businesses to create activities for their everyday customers. This will ultimately have a much direct impact on obesity rates in children as guardians will have more tools to make better family decisions. Mexican culture is very family oriented and is always looking for new places to go and spend quality time, creating this tianguis near their home will formalize the market and impact more families. 

Social Media is the most commonly communication media used in Mexico. Due to its low-cost and low-entry barriers, the number of users has boomed in recent years. However, this form of communication is mostly used for entertainment purposes.

This solution relies on the use of social media, Mexico's only "free" communication media through mobile devices. Because this is the most-commonly used function of smartphones for communication, and as a result of its low-cost nature; we will be able to reach a wider population despite their time constraints without them having to commute.

 While people who develop small businesses operate on empiric knowledge; we plan to launch a format similar to MOOCs on these platforms to reach wide audiences and instruct them in knowledge gaps that many people cannot acquire on their own. Mostly these include legal and financial literacy, marketing practices as well as environmental and social responsibility. Reaching this population had never been addressed this way before and operating in an unadressed format will open new opportunities for communities to exchange good and stimulate the local economy. 

This approach addresses the problem because it not only aims to help decrease obesity rates, but strengthen communities all together by providing a community space in the evening for families. In comparison to traditional markets, this takes vendors and businesses from that community and empowers them by giving them the right tools and support to expand their business and provide better products. 

While many public and social healthcare programs provide messages focusing on prevention, none of them actually educates the population nor creates the proper environment to solve Mexican-specific issues. We are aware of guardian's cooking time constraints due to tight work scheudles and provide locally-grown healthy food in attractive formats for children so that parents invest minimum amounts of time on preparation while providing nutrition. At the same time, we teach vendors the entrepreneurship skills to help their businesses flourish in a sustainable way.. 

The solution will serve residents of the Iztapalapa municipality in Mexico City, where the pilot will be launched this year. Its current population reaches 2 million citizens. In the next five years, Ecatepec, Xochimilco, and Nezahualcóyotl, also areas surrounding Mexico City, will be added to the project, reaching a total population of 5.1 million city inhabitants. The project's goal is to expand to all regions of Mexico with support from local governments to help them address underrepresented populations.

Our goals within the next year is to permeate the neighborhoods we are addressing by creating a culture of city-dwellers who visit a Tianguis Nocturno once a week.

Our measurable targets will be vendor's income, number of assistants, and child-health in BMI. These records will be tracked with partnering elementary schools along with school performance in children.

Highlight specific financial, technical, legal, cultural, or market barriers for the next year and the next five years as you aim for larger impact.

Existing barriers that exist to successfully implement The Tianguis Nocturno arise from political and security factors. Social and community programs are highly linked to political policies and funds, and although we seek funding through sponsors, government will play a key role. 

Street markets and community programs need to go through local government offices, and since there is a new government, creating a fruitful relationship would be a priority to have the permits, support and even funds. Creating relationships at a state and federal level would also help when scaling the project throughout cities. 

Another barrier is that given the increase of insecurity, theft and crime, especially in low-income neighborhoods. Many people do not go out and therefore would not visit the Tianguis. 

We will overcome the security barrier by partnering with local governments to coordinate security elements in the areas where The Tianguis Nocturno will be set up. While this location will require an initial investment on infrastructure to maintain a clean and well-lit environment; people will naturally feel secure in this kind of layout. 

To address any governmental issue, we will launch a privately-funded pilot test to measure the results and then present the initiative to the government to request their support. The team would have to create strong relationships with the local police and ensure that the tianguis is a safe place for the community.

Our team is part of Mexico Business Publishing, an editorial that publishes books on Mexico’s economic sectors. Through our line of work, we have not only studied government programs and companies impacting cities, but we have created relationships with key-decision makers that could give us insight and even potential sponsors.

Brenda Araceli Salas Caldera

Karen Cristina Sujo Contla

Ailete Xiomara Córdova Castro

We possess technological, management, logistics, and educational skills to address all proposals withing our solution.

Ou team is well-rounded. Karen masters analytical information and is great at research, to ensure the most accurate data possible. She is also specialized in health data science and is passionate about the cause. Ailette is an experienced information designer that is able to communicate complex information in a simple and interactive way, a skill necessary when reaching out to different communities, ages and backgrounds. Brenda has experience in the research and development of sustainable and inclusive cities, but also a strong business player that can help with the business and financial aspects of the program. 

We are not currently partnering with any organization but will eventually seek private investment and government partnerships

The model is to be financed through government support and sponsorships to product and service providers, that would not generate revenue directly to the government, but to the businesses in that area. After the program is established, the possibility of charging a small fee for businesses to advertise or have a stand exists. The key customers would be the families in the community themselves as they purchase local products from local vendors. 

The Tianguis Nocturno will rely on partnerships during its initial stage to fund the infrastructure, marketing expenses, and platforms. Eventually, the idea is to help the business model operate on its own by empowering all stakeholders. 

We want to be involved in an innovative environment that will give us the knowledge and tools to properly deploy this much needed solution in the country

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Government

Bimbo, CIMMYT, Sagarpá

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