‘Baby On Board’ in Organic Food Business,
As Brands Innovate with Healthy Products
By MARY DAVIS, QFFI Correspondent

Gobble, Gobble! This 340-gram pack of HappyBaby meals contains two servings of organic sweet potatoes, vegetables, turkey, fruits and millet.

Earth’s Best Organic Mini Waffles tie in with Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster character to encourage kids to adopt “healthy habits for life.” Made in Canada, the product is distributed by the Hain Celestial Group, Inc., of Melville, New York.

From Gobble Gobble Paradise Purée to Pumpkin Banana, Mango Museli and Sesame Street-licensed Mini Waffles, creative menu makers are thinking outside the baby food jar.

With the market for organic food products in the USA now valued at over $23 billion per year, it’s little wonder that small, medium and big frozen companies are all catering to robust demand. And that goes for kid’s stuff too, where the baby segment is a growing business. Even during tough economic times, parents who can afford generally higher-priced organic fare are apt to keep spoon-feeding their littlest ones with what is perceived to be good for their well being.

Mom Made Foods, based in Alexandria, Virginia, was created by Heather Stouffer, who wanted to give her son a variety of healthy foods. She initially launched Mom Made Scoops at a farmer’s market. They were purées of apple, pear, broccoli and sweet potato for babies.

In 2008 the company rolled out Mom Made Meals (cheesy macaroni made with organic peas and sweet potato, plus Fiesta Rice) and Mom Made Munchies (cheese pizza and bean burrito) for children. The foods are now sold in specialty stores.

Plum Organics sells three types of products, targeting stages of infancy from six months, from nine months, and from 12 months of age. For each stage it recently rolled out new recipes.

Pumpkin Banana is now available for babies from six months, and Mango Museli for babies from nine months.

The 12-month-plus stage is itself relatively new and is represented by two products: Harvest Vegetables with Turkey and Black Bean Tomato Ragout. The food is sold in pairs of four-ounce, re-sealable plastic containers, without BPA or phthalates. It needs to be thawed and then can be warmed briefly in its container in a microwave oven.

HappyBaby markets boxes of frozen organic baby “meals,” two flavors to each box. QFFI volunteers sampled a 12-ounce box containing a dozen cubes of Gobble Gobble (with sweet potatoes, butternut squash, turkey, fruit and millet) and of Paradise Purée (with mango, bananas, peaches, and amaranth). It cost $4.99 at a Healthy Living shop.

HappyBaby food is produced for three stages of babies. QFFI’s samplers selected a box formulated for those aged nine months or more, and so was in the “kinda chunky” line. The Thanksgiving variety appealed to them more than the fruit.

The package instructs parents to pop the cubes out of the BPA-free plastic and heat them in another container on the stovetop or in a microwave oven. The other two levels of baby food are simple purées for those six-plus months of age, and smooth combos for children aged seven-plus months.

The company was founded by two women devoted to the idea of making more healthful baby food. A pediatrician, Dr. Bob Sears, helped them to develop the meals, which are distributed by Nurture, Inc. of Brooklyn, New York.

The company also makes Happy Bites, organic meals for young children. The bites “hide” various healthful ingredients that many children would not normally eat if they knew of their presence. Among them are Veggie Tots with Orange “Cheetah” Sauce, described as “high protein (hidden zucchini, carrots, black beans, butternut squash and chickpeas) and Salmon Stix with White “Bear” Sauce, described as having “520mg EPA/DHA plus high protein (hidden wild salmon, chickpeas, cauliflower, red peppers and tofu).”

Earth’s Best, a brand of the Hain Celestial Group, has teamed up with Sesame Street to provide healthy food for toddlers. The line is composed of packages of non-frozen cereals and snacks and a variety of new frozen products.

For breakfast it serves up frozen Organic Mini Waffles in Homestyle and Blueberry varieties. The Homestyle delivers, per serving of four mini waffles, 12 grams of whole grain plus 25% of the minimum daily requirement (MDR) of iron, 20% of the MDR of zinc, and substantial amounts of the six B vitamins. Sesame Street character Cookie Monster is featured on the front of the 226-gram box.

Also for toddlers are frozen organic Mini Cheese Ravioli and Whole Grain Cheese Pizza, plus two new entrées: Organic Elmo Pasta’n Sauce with Carrots and Broccoli, and Organic Elmo Mac’n Cheese with Carrots and Broccoli.

Among the retailers selling Earth’s Best are Kroger stores, which ensures that the line reaches a wide variety of potential customers.