There is a number that Cuddles Foundation’s 2025-26 Impact Report carries quietly and it deserves more attention. Right now, as you read this, approximately 1,235 children are in Cuddles Foundation’s care. Not this year. Not this month. Today.
That is what scaling a nutrition programme actually looks like. Not a headline figure on an annual report, but 1,235 children, on any given day, receiving personalised nutritional support because someone decided this problem was worth solving at scale.
Thirteen Years of Consistent Growth
Cuddles Foundation has grown every single year since it was founded in 2013. The numbers tell a clear story: from 12,929 children reached in 2021-22 to 20,277 in 2025-26, a 56% increase in five years, with an average yearly growth of around 12%.
The program now operates across 50 hospitals in 17 states, with 85+ nutritionists and patient support coordinators on the ground.
In 2025-26, Cuddles Foundation nutritionists conducted over 2,85,700 counselling sessions. That’s not a typo. Nearly three lakh individual conversations between trained nutritionists and families navigating the most difficult period of their lives. All in a single year.
This kind of scale doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of a replicable model: embed trained paediatric oncology nutritionists directly inside hospitals, provide food and nutrition aid, track outcomes rigorously, and publish what you find.
What Scaling Actually Requires
Expanding a nutrition programme across 17 states in India is not the same as expanding a delivery service. Each hospital has a different patient profile, different oncology protocols, different caregiver demographics, and different local food cultures. A ration bundle that works in Maharashtra needs to account for different staple foods than one distributed in Assam or Rajasthan.
Cuddles Foundation manages this through the FoodHeals™ App; a first-of-its-kind technology platform that automates clinical nutritional functions, enabling nutritionists to track each child’s status, flag deteriorations, and maintain care consistency across a large caseload. The App is part of what makes it possible for a team of 85+ nutritionists to deliver genuinely personalised care at the scale of 20,000+ children.
Training is the other pillar. In 2025-26, Cuddles Foundation conducted 7 training programmes, trained 400+ healthcare workers, and delivered 50 hours of training; not just to its own nutritionists, but to the wider sector. This year, Cuddles Foundation presented at the largest global Pediatric Oncology Conference: SIOP 2025 in Amsterdam and trained Childhood Cancer International members on building nutrition programmes of their own. BMJ Global Health cited Cuddles Foundation’s research, a signal that the model is earning recognition in peer-reviewed global health literature, not just in the development sector.
The Financial Case for Scale
For companies and donors considering where their investment can do the most good, the economics of the FoodHeals Program are unusually transparent. An independent Social Return on Investment assessment by Crisil Intelligence (February 2026) found that for every rupee invested in the programme, ₹2.63 worth of social value is generated.
Families participating in the programme saw a 31% reduction in out-of-pocket nutrition costs, critical relief for households where the majority earn under ₹20,000 a month.
Jyoti, whose son Shaurya was enrolled in FoodHeals after his treating doctor referred the family to Cuddles Foundation, described what that support meant: for the first time, someone was truly guiding them. Knowing her son was getting the right nutrition every day gave her the strength to keep going. That’s not just an emotional outcome, it’s what keeps caregivers present, engaged, and able to support their child through treatment.
What’s Next
Cuddles Foundation’s 2025-26 report outlines an ambitious horizon. The Survivorship Programme, offering continued nutritional care after treatment is being conceptualised. A Learning Management Portal to standardise training across the wider paediatric oncology nutrition sector is launching in 2026-27. And in partnership with Columbia University, Cuddles Foundation is developing an AI-powered nutrition tool designed to carry 13 years of learning to children in the remotest corners of India and beyond.
For companies exploring CSR ideas for childhood cancer or individuals looking for an NGO in Mumbai with a demonstrable national impact, this is what long-term, evidence-based commitment to a problem looks like.
