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11/08/06 // Oh, baby! Fancy new eats for the highchair setBy APRIL LYNCH
San Jose Mercury News
Pass the peas with mint and fruity rice pudding. Toddling in the footsteps of grown-up fare, baby food is going upscale.
Forget jarred mystery mush. A growing array of companies is serving up refrigerated or frozen baby eats focused on sound nutrition and fresh taste. Loaded with organic ingredients—and price tags to match—new baby foods are arriving on doorsteps and grocery shelves.
And they face a discerning crowd. The world’s toughest food critics hold court in highchairs. I should know. One issues her critiques, punctuated with smiles or scowls, from my dining room daily.
I’ve made most meals for my 10-month-old daughter, Ava, myself. But lately we’ve been busy taking bites on behalf of babies everywhere, trying out some of the new baby food. We also shared some samples with other moms and babies—Camille and 9-month-old Bella, and Rebekah and year-old Jacob.
The new baby food aims to match the freshness of a homemade meal. But these products face plenty of other demands.
They need to deliver food safety, convenience, quality and good nutrition. Many parents want varied dishes in hopes of steering little ones away from picky eating habits. The new brands also need to justify their cost, often more than double that of jarred or homemade food.
“We know how important all this is to parents,” said Theresa Kiene, whose company, Homemade Baby, began selling refrigerated meals from Culver City one year ago. Kiene cooked baby food for her three daughters, and her dishes, such as a pear-kiwi purée called “Piwi,” are just now showing up in San Francisco Bay Area Whole Foods markets.
“People take feeding their babies really seriously,” Kiene said. “I know I did.”
Homemade Baby relies on organic ingredients, a trend followed by new and traditional baby food companies alike. Shoppers are buying less baby food overall, according to industry analysts. But with parents eager to avoid pesticide residues and other contaminants, companies saw sales of organic baby food jump by about 11 percent last year.
Gerber, the heavyweight of the jarred baby food world, recently launched an organic line of cereals, juices and purées. Upscale natural groceries often stock their baby aisles with organic jarred brands such as Earth’s Best or Organic Baby.
The new companies, though, say their products are fresher and tastier than any organic jarred food. They lightly cook food, purée it, then refrigerate or flash-freeze. Regular jarred baby foods, by comparison, are processed at high heat to keep them safe on shelves for a year or more.
The new foods are far fresher-looking and -tasting than jarred versions, with textures more like homemade baby food and lively, clear flavors.
One new maker, HappyBaby, offers peas with mint that are a beautiful bright green, with a fresh summer taste and a sweet minty undertone. Ava loved them.
“When you see the color vs. the processed jarred peas, the difference is night and day,” said Shazi Visram, founder and chief executive of the Brooklyn-based company. The company’s frozen baby food cubes will be arriving in some Whole Foods and Mollie Stone’s markets this fall.
The new foods’ shorter handling times also are intended to maintain vitamins and other important nutrients.
“When I cooked for my sons, preserving vitamins was really important to me,” said Iria Nishimura, whose Baby Cubes & More delivers frozen baby food to some California homes and also ships nationwide. Ava and Bella enjoyed the San Jose company’s broccoli, a nutrient-packed vegetable to which many babies give the lips-sealed-shut treatment.
All of the new brands offer baby food basics such as puréed pears and sweet potatoes, and then enliven the mix with unique recipes. The wide range of flavors—plums, lentils, even coriander—is intended to help babies develop broader palates. Nutrition experts say adventurous eating starts early.
“You shape your preferences based on what you’re exposed to,” said Dr. Elizabeth Shepard, a pediatrician and nutrition specialist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. “Sensory preferences basically start at birth. Everything, every flavor, a child is exposed to puts some kind of impression into their brain.”
Baby Cubes & More, through its “Nami” line, offers 21 single-ingredient fruits and vegetables. Plum Organics, a frozen baby food line based in New York, sells veggie stews blended with lentils, chicken or beef at upscale grocery chains. Plum’s menu also includes a savory mix of greens and whole grains and a rice pudding dotted with banana and peach.
Homemade Baby’s lineup includes “Squapples,” a squash-apple blend. HappyBaby offers “Baby Dhal,” an Indian-inspired recipe that livens red dahl with hints of cinnamon and coriander.
Bohemian Baby, which ships its refrigerated foods overnight from Southern California, cooks from a master menu of 60 dishes that rotate seasonally. Customers choose from a list of 15 dishes a week.
The company’s offerings—including fruity yogurts with no added sugar, a smooth stew of kale and sweet potato, and pesto alphabet pasta—show creativity not usually seen in baby food jars. Jacob loved the company’s Cuban black beans, Merc mom Rebekah said.
“We did a lot of recipe development, and honestly, it was a lot of trial and error,” said Bohemian Baby founder Anni Daulter. “Some are combinations of things I had created for my son when he was a baby. Our black beans are from a good friend of ours. It’s her secret recipe.”
Parents and babies, however, may have a hard time enjoying all the new options. First, you have to track down the new brands. Then you have to cover the hefty bill.
When I checked markets for the new foods, I often left empty-handed. Some of the brands are just arriving in stores such as Andronico’s, Mollie Stone’s and Whole Foods.
The three companies that ship their food to customers—Bohemian Baby, Baby Cubes & More, and Homemade Baby—offer the convenience of doorstep delivery. Packages from Bohemian Baby and Homemade Baby arrived as planned. There were a few hitches in getting my delivery from Baby Cubes & More, but a representative said the problems weren’t typical of the company’s customer service.
A bigger issue for most families, though, will be price. Costing anywhere from 40 to 70 cents an ounce, the new brands run about two or three times more than jarred food. Home delivery brings extra handling fees.
Rebekah checked out Bohemian Baby’s Web site, but said the shipping costs would stop her from ordering. “I just feed Jacob what I’m eating,” she said. He enjoys curries, goat cheese and even pâté.
Camille, who’s been feeding Bella jarred foods, also said cost is a big concern. She recently bought a food processor to start making baby purées.
The new companies all say their prices reflect quality ingredients and the extra work that goes into fresh food. Gigi Lee Chang, founder of Plum Organics, doesn’t expect all her customers to serve Plum at every meal.
“Choose whatever you feel is most worthwhile,” she said. “If you’re most uncomfortable with a chicken jarred product, then only buy the chicken from our line.”
While I’ll keep making most of Ava’s meals, I also have to swallow some of my cooking pride. Ava likes some of the new meals better than she likes mine, especially blends of green vegetables. For me, these items are worth buying.
And for the founders of the new baby food companies, that mix sounds fine. Each said they hope their work gives parents new interest in fresh foods for babies.
“By offering food that’s like homemade, I’d like to encourage parents to have confidence,” Chang said. “If they have a banana, then they can do something proactive and confident in feeding their baby. And it doesn’t have to be a fancy banana from an expensive organic store.”
New players on baby food scene:
|Baby Cubes & More|
• What they make: 21 varieties of single-flavor frozen foods, branded as “Nami” and sold in ice cube-size portions of purée
• Where to find: Order online; the San Jose company will deliver in the surrounding area for a $5 fee or ship anywhere.
• Price: About $5 for a 10-cube bag
• Plus: Convenient portion size; easy to mix and blend with other foods; great range of fruits and vegetables, including golden beets and nectarines
• Minus: Some fruit varieties such as apricots and plums were very tart, even by adult standards. We had problems getting our delivery, but company says such glitches are unusual.
• Web site: http://www.babycubes.biz
|Bohemian Baby|
• What they make: 60 varieties of refrigerated baby food, ranging from single-flavor purées to pasta and little veggie cakes for toddlers
• Where to find: Home delivery in Southern California; online ordering for customers elsewhere • Price: $3.50 per 5-ounce glass jar, additional service set-up and shipping fees
• Plus: Incredible variety of dishes; new offerings each season; innovative recipes; great baby yogurt
• Minus: The most expensive of the high-end baby foods we tried. Jar size leaves you with lots of uneaten food if your baby says, “Ugh.”
• Web site: http://www.bohemian-baby.com
|HappyBaby|
• What they make: 10 varieties of flash-frozen baby food in packaging similar to ice cube trays
• Where to find: Available this fall at natural food stores throughout Northern California, including Whole Foods and Mollie Stone’s
• Price: About $5 per box of 12 one-ounce cubes (two flavors per box)
• Plus: Fresh, bright flavors; innovative dishes such as Indian-inspired red dhal and spinach blended with pear and mango; convenient portion size
• Minus: Product line could use more all-fruit dishes—company plans to introduce two new ones soon.
• Web site: http://www.happybabyfood.com
|Homemade baby|
• What they make: Nine varieties of refrigerated baby food in small plastic tubs, ranging from smooth to chunky blends
• Where to find: Just arriving at Whole Foods markets in Northern California; also available through online orders
• Price: $6.99 for four four-ounce tubs at Whole Foods; online order costs vary with order size
• Plus: Refrigerated tubs are easy to use out on the town; some blends (such as squash and apple “Squapples") drew big baby smiles.
• Minus: Some single-flavor dishes were disappointing—apples, especially, tasted better than jarred baby food but overcooked compared with homemade.
• Web site: http://www.homemadebaby.com
|Plum Organics|
• What they make: Eight varieties of single-flavor and blended dishes frozen in four-ounce plastic tubs
• Where to find: Andronico’s; some Mollie Stone’s markets; Country Sun in Palo Alto; arriving in Whole Foods throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Price: About $3 for two 4-ounce tubs
• Plus: Great-tasting blends, including a fruity rice pudding, green vegetables so good Ava waved her arms when they came to the table, and tasty stews of veggies and chicken or beef
• Minus: Smaller range of varieties than other small-batch baby food companies. Some of the simpler dishes lacked the flavor and distinctiveness of the blends.
• Web site: http://www.plumorganics.com