The archive · Marketing & Growth · Strategic decision · 2025–2026
Puck licenses displaced mothers' recipes to restaurants — wins MENA Effie Grand Prix
War stopped Puck's food aid, so it licensed displaced mothers' recipes to restaurants — every fee goes to the woman. The idea won the MENA Effie Grand Prix.
Puck (Arla Foods)
What it had to solve
When war in Lebanon broke supply chains and forced Puck to halt its Selfless Shelves initiative — which gave displaced women jars and shelf space to sell food — the women lost homes and jobs but kept their recipes. Puck needed a way to keep supporting them.
How it works
In 2025, war in Lebanon forced Puck — Arla Foods' dairy brand trusted across the Middle East — to halt 'Selfless Shelves', an initiative that gave displaced women jars and shelf space to sell their food. The women behind it lost homes and jobs, but they kept something valuable: their recipes.
FP7 McCann built 'Recipe for Change' on that insight. Puck gathered the mothers' signature dishes — Amani's spinach fatayer, Fidaa's cheese ma'amoul — and presented each recipe as its author's intellectual property, licensed to Lebanese and fusion restaurants across the UAE, KSA and beyond during Ramadan 2025. Diners supported the families simply by ordering the dishes; every licensing fee goes back to the woman behind it.
The model turned a humanitarian crisis into B2B commerce. In 2025, half of proceeds also funded Dubai Cares' Lebanon Emergency Response, and the campaign won the MENA Effie Grand Prix, a Grand LIA for B2B creativity and a LIA Gold in Sustainability.
More importantly, it outgrew one Ramadan: Puck built a permanent hub where restaurants anywhere can license recipes, and where other displaced mothers can submit their own dishes. Each licensed dish keeps generating income, dignity and global solidarity for its author.
Why it lands
- It treated the women's recipes as intellectual property, so a single creative asset could be licensed again and again — recurring income rather than one-off aid.
- It inverted charity: instead of asking for donations, it made diners and restaurants the customers, giving the women agency, credit and dignity.
- The idea was modular — it worked during Ramadan, then scaled into a permanent, year-round licensing platform for any restaurant in the world.
- It kept the brand's role as 'the mothers' brand' while solving a real supply-chain problem, turning a crisis that ended one initiative into a stronger, global one.
What it did
The campaign won the MENA Effie 2025 Grand Prix, a Grand LIA for B2B creativity and a LIA Gold in Sustainability — then outgrew one Ramadan into a permanent licensing platform where restaurants can license dishes such as Amani's spinach fatayer year-round, turning each order into recurring income for its mother.
What you can take
When a crisis kills an activation, look for what people still own: the mothers' recipes became licensable IP, turning aid into a recurring revenue stream — dignity, not charity.
Since then
After winning the MENA Effie Grand Prix and a Grand LIA, Recipe for Change became a permanent platform: a public hub where restaurants license dishes like Amani's spinach fatayer, and displaced mothers can submit their own recipes to earn from them. In 2025, half of all proceeds also supported Dubai Cares' Lebanon Emergency Response. The initiative replaced the interrupted Selfless Shelves model and kept generating income for families after the campaign window ended.
Sources
- FP7 McCann Named Most Effective Agency Network at 2025 MENA Effie Awards
- FP7 McCann's 'Recipe for Change' closes LIA 2025 with a Grand LIA on Creativity in B2B
- Recipe for Change (Golden Drum 2025 showcase)
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