Vini Mini Start-up Prevents Allergies for Children with Innovative Products

Start-up Vini Mini develops products to prevent allergies. A lot has happened since the last time we spoke to Laurie Lancee. Like this she won the FEM-START Up Award – and thus €100,000 from the investment company Antler – and the Vini Mini range was expanded from three to seventeen products. IO called Lancee for an update.

Allergic to eggs

It all started when Viggo, Lancee’s son, was diagnosed with an egg allergy. “When I gave him a piece of egg, his body reacted very violently: his ears became swollen, he started spitting, his feet turned blue and his body became increasingly weak,” Lancee previously told IO.

After examination in the hospital, it turned out that Viggo also had an increased risk of developing other allergies, which is more common among people with a food allergy. Lancee wanted to avoid that at all costs. “Together with the medical team, we started giving Viggo small amounts of proteins every week from products that many people are allergic to, such as peanuts and tree nuts.”

Preventing peanut allergy with peanut: Vini Mini follows science

In ten years, the number of people with a peanut or tree nut allergy in the West has doubled. Other allergies are also becoming more common.

Minuscule amounts of peanut

That’s how Lancee came up with the idea of ​​Vini Mini. The company sells tiny quantities of peanuts and tree nuts in capsules or bags. By slowly adding more peanut powder to children’s food, the chance of them developing a food allergy is significantly reduced. The LEAP Study (one of the largest studies of food allergy) found that only three percent of children developed a food allergy after being gently exposed to peanut. In the other research group, which had not been exposed to peanut at all, seventeen percent had developed a food allergy.

While last year the company only offered a solution for peanut allergies, they expanded their innovation to cashew nuts, hazelnuts and walnuts. The form of administration was also expanded; Parents can now also give their children the substances via chips. This diversity in offering is a strategic move to reach more children and protect them against the development of allergies.

Vini Mini products are specifically targeted at babies aged four months to one year, when immune system development is at a crucial stage. Lancee: “The annoying thing is that if you start later, it is almost impossible to outgrow your allergy. Then you have a permanent chronic disease.”

Platforms for women: much needed

In recent years, Lancee’s company has raised almost 400,000 euros in financing. She won a quarter of that by winning the FEM-START Up Award. “Platforms specifically for women in start-ups are crucial to ultimately achieve more equality,” says the entrepreneur. “You also have, for example The Angel Initiative: an investor collective of women with a diversity of backgrounds and experiences who invest in women-owned businesses. These types of initiatives, events and networks are desperately needed; women are vastly underrepresented in this world. Only two percent of all investments in the Netherlands go to female entrepreneurs. A stage where women take center stage is really very important.”