Articles: NRA 2016: Once Upon a Farm

Refrigerated Baby Food Right On Trend

Food News

One of the most interesting products to catch our eye at the recent National Restaurant Association Show was from Once Upon a Farm: refrigerated baby food. They claim to be the first of their kind, and while we’ve seen the progression from jar to pouch, we agree—we haven’t seen this type of fresh baby food before.

Up until recently, parents have had the choice of jarred or processed food, or making their own. Many new parents go into the idea of having a baby full of personal resolution and sure that they can keep up with filling those containers with freshly mashed meat, fruits and vegetables. For many, though, the reality of sleepless nights and work schedules means something has to give. Enter Once Upon a Farm.

We tasted the various flavors, including an avocado-based chocolate, and can’t see infants turning their noses up at this, let along flinging it off the high chair. The flavor is just enough for those yet-to-be-defined palates.

We like this product because consumer perceptions of food have changed drastically in the past few years. We’ve watched as transparency in labeling and locally sourced goods have moved into prominence. So of course it had to happen in baby food, particularly as parents strive to ensure nutrients are not lost in processing.

Once Upon a Farm has made the solution simple, offering pre-packaged, organic, HPP-treated, cold-pressured baby food. HPP, or high pressure processing, is a relatively new technology that preserves packaged food products by using extremely high pressure. The idea is to give food a fresher taste and more vitamins, minerals and enzymes, without the use of preservatives.

The clever packaging also got our attention, as these products come in squeezable pouches that each have a clear window, so that consumers can visibly see the product inside the pouch. The pouch gives parents the ability to easily squeeze bite size amounts onto spoons for younger children, and for older children the pouched-style allows them to easily feed themselves.

We liked it enough to put it on our top trends list from the show, which you can find here.

 

 

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