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Health-conscious parents are extending their concerns to the foods they give their offspring.
According to a recent report by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT), baby food is one of the three fastest-growing specialty food categories (along with refrigerated juices and functional beverages, and yogurt and kefir). All three categories saw more than 50 percent increase in sales between 2006 and 2008, with baby food jumping from $34 million in sales in 2006 to $58 million in 2008 — a remarkable 70 percent increase.
The number of specialty baby food introductions nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007, according to market research firm Mintel International’s Global New Product Database.
One reason for the sharp increase is the number of new “toddler foods” entering the marketplace, especially those that address parents’ growing demand for healthy and convenient options for their two-to-five year olds. These notoriously discerning consumers — or more accurately, their exasperated parents — are more and more turning to natural and organic products to satisfy their fickle needs. Free from additives and preservatives and with lower sugar content, natural and organic toddler foods not only encourage healthy eating habits but, it is hoped, lead to better behaved and less frequently sick toddlers, while providing numerous long-term health benefits.
Product innovations abound in this sector, from mainstays such as Earth’s Best Organic, a leader in fortified kids snacks, to relative newcomers like Plum Organics, whose huge success with its frozen baby foods led to the recent launch of Plum Kids meals and Plum Tots organic snacks, and HappyFamily with its new HappyBites line of toddler foods.
“It’s definitely a growing market,” says Liane Weintraub, co-founder of Tasty Brand, which makes Tastybaby organic frozen baby food and organic baby cereals, and recently expanded into toddler foods with its Organic Fruit Snacks.
Weintraub is encouraged that even during a recession, parents are spending on healthy food for their kids. “Consumers today more than ever are putting emphasis and focus on areas of their lives that are valuable. Personal indulgences for adults have gone by the wayside, and there has been a decline in organic food for adults, but babies and kids brands have not declined. As adults we cut back when the economy is bad; but taking it out on your kids would be an act of desperation,” she says. “There’s so much more information now about the food supply, and scares about tainted food supply, and there’s a huge level of fear that comes along with being a parent. Parents are looking for ways they can feel safe on behalf of their kids.”
Plum Organics founder Gigi Lee Chang, whose company also recently expanded into toddler foods from its frozen baby food beginnings, saw a gap in the market and jumped on in. “Many kids of toddler age will only eat pizza, mac and cheese, or chicken nuggets, but is that all they’ll eat or is it that those are the only options out there? You give them something quick and it creates the cycle. Certainly for me, I thought there was a need. My son was getting older and I was frustrated with the lack of options. My motivation [with Plum Kids meals] was addressing that need.”
Chang also points out that toddlers benefit just as much from organic food as babies do. “Toddlers are still going through amazing development in growth. As a parent, you want to give them the purest food you can.”
Some of the innovations in these new toddler foods include fortification (such as Earth's Best Cereal Bars fortified with calcium, iron, zinc and six B vitamins, Plum Kids meals fortified with DHA, and First Juice’s toddler fruit and veggie juices fortified with calcium and vitamins C and D); including “hidden” ingredients (HappyFamily’s HappyBites, with hidden veggies, protein, fiber and “secret” sauces); and addressing specific dietary needs like wheat, dairy or soy allergies (Allergaroo’s gluten-free, dairy free, soy-free all-natural Chili Mac, Spyglass Noodles and Spaghetti).
“Our line of frozen hand-held meals contain hidden vegetables in formats and flavors that kids adore,” says HappyFamily founder and CEO Shazi Visram. “For instance, mac and cheese is a time-honored classic, but our Mac and Cheese Bites come in a patty format that is fun to hold and dip. The filling contains an entire serving of vegetables with butternut squash hidden in the mix. Our research showed that moms were looking for foods that would satisfy their toddlers’ picky palettes without sacrificing balanced nutrition and taste.”
“It can be challenging to get vegetables into babies and toddlers,” says Stonyfield Farms’ Jeff Pillet-Shore, brand manager of YoBaby organic yogurts which recently launched YoBaby Meals, a 3-in-1 combination of yogurt, fruit and veggie purée. In individual 6 oz. cups, the yogurts contain pear and green bean, peach and squash, and apple and sweet potato blends. “We saw intuitively and through research that those veggies were good to use. But they’re not hidden,” he emphasizes. “They’re just mixed in. There’s no deception involved in it; it’s just good, very basic and honest.”
All but one of YoBaby’s yogurt offerings — which include convenient options such as YoBaby Drinkables and YoBaby Squeezables — are fortified with zinc and vitamin E, in response to recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and Dr. Sears. “There’s also a lot of vitamin A in YoBaby Meals that’s naturally in the product. Adding natural fruit and vegetables to yogurt, you’d be pushed to find anything that provides more nutrition than that. It really delivers the basic things a parent is looking for.”
“Toddlers are the hardest audience to please,” says Kerry Williams, VP of Pitter Patties, which makes all-natural ready-to-heat entrées packed with veggies, whole grains and natural proteins. “Everyone knows how difficult it is to give healthy choices to children; then you have to factor in that toddlers change their minds all the time!”
Pitter Patties hit on a winner by making their product muffin-shaped — hard to resist for any toddler — as well as addressing a variety of special dietary needs, such as dairy-free, vegan and gluten-free.
“Our product is very dense with nutrients. Everything is antibiotic- and hormone-free, no added salt or sugar, extra virgin olive oil not canola oil, and we don’t add soy,” says Williams. “I have two toddlers. Whenever they eat the Spinach Patch, which is dense with calcium and iron, as a parent I feel so happy that they got their greens for the day.”
Convenience is another key growth driver in this sector. Parents on the go are looking for simple-to-prepare dishes and ready-to-eat snacks for their toddlers and preschoolers, to maximize the time spent on activities and minimize kitchen chores. Products such as Pitter Patties, HappyBites Breakfast Pockets, Plum Kids and Allergaroo’s microwave meals, and Revolution Foods’ Lunchbox Simplicity (a line of organic fruit and whole-grain snacks and sandwich fillers designed for a “complete” toddler lunchbox) precisely address those needs.
“Convenience plays a major role in the decisions parents make when it come to buying store-bought prepared foods, but for our market that it is tempered with the desire for high-quality food,” says HappyFamily’s Visram. “For instance, our meals are prepared as home-style foods, so parents know they are purchasing something close to homemade. The real value is an enlightened formulation that is premade for them that they can feel good about feeding their children. Part of our brand promise is to offer meals that add that additional value of saving time while providing a unique nutritious product.”
It’s not just the natural-food neophytes that are benefiting from parents’ increasing interest in healthy toddler foods; even a company as established as Traditional Medicinals, which has specialized in organic herbal teas for the best part of four decades, has seen a rise in demand for its Just For Kids toddler teas.
“Everyone’s concerned about exposure to toxins such as pesticide residues,” says Traditional Medicinals’ VP of Research & Development, Josef Brinckmann. “Organic provides protection against toxins; and under organic control there is very careful testing of soil and water, etc. Parents, especially, are concerned about that. We find that parents care quite a bit, and a lot of products that sell well as organic are products that parents are buying for their children. We have definitely seen an increase in sales of our Just For Kids teas.”
But are parents willing to pay the additional premium for these specialty organic products for their littlest? The figures imply that to be the case; and those in the trenches are optimistic.
“It is my feeling that parents who are truly educated about the difference between organic and conventionally grown foods are almost always willing to pay the premium,” says Visram. “Some people still think organic is a fad or a branding attempt to charge premium pricing. It is those parents who we aim to educate so they know why the foods are grown without the use of synthetic pesticides and why those foods do cost more to produce.”
“In this economic environment, if we have to make choices and compromises, I think choosing organic foods for your children is one of the last to go,” says Plum Organics’ Chang. She notes that, in her experience, retailers have been surprisingly forward-thinking, exposing their customers to healthier options and in the process giving an additional boost to the sector. “SuperTarget has a core initiative to be better for babies and kids; they actually sought us out, I never had to convince them that our product was a good thing. And Babies R Us, the buyer there is very forward thinking. He recognizes that the majority of moms coming through are first-time moms and he believes that person is the prime organic consumer, so he’s sought products to meet her needs.”
In its U.S. Infant Nutrition 2009 report, analysts Frost & Sullivan offers some more encouraging news. It sees increasing product innovation in foods for the under-fives remaining a high-impact growth driver for the total U.S. infant nutrition market, predicting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for organic nutrition products in this sector of 21.1 percent over the next six years. | .jpg)
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