Fresh Healthy Baby Food Tasting Opportunity

by Staff Writer

Customers listen patiently as the Le Cordon Bleu trained Chef personally describes the day's specials – a delicate blend of ripe roasted acorn squash sweetened with Fuji apples, or perhaps a shallot and celery infused yam puree. Then, the Chef offers them each a sample in little cups with tiny spoons. After the customers take a taste, it's not rare for them to literally drool – or even to gleefully splash their faces with the bright orange yams. After all, they're babies.

Napa Valley has wine tasting, great chefs have tasting menus, and now Los Angeles has the world's first baby food tasting room – where the maitre de dotes on grinning babies and their parents are gladly along for the ride.

This baby food tasting room can be found in the comfortable Culver City headquarters of Homemade Baby – a first of its kind creator of fresh, deliciously organic and kosher home-style food for babies and toddlers. The one-year old company is the brainchild of Los Angeles residents Theresa and Matt Kiene. Despairing at the lack of fresh organic baby food options for their own three children, Theresa decided to make the delicious, healthy dishes she'd been cooking in her kitchen for the past 8 years, and sharing with friends, available to parents everywhere.

"Since 1928, commercial baby food has been sold in shelf-stable glass jars – often with expiration dates older than the babies eating the food" lamented Theresa Kiene. Although baby food companies are gradually moving away from glass jars because of carcinogenic concerns over the metal lid safety seals, baby foods remain in the grocery aisle. "We wanted to give busy parents a fresh alternative and keep it convenient. That's why you'll find us in the refrigerated section, next to baby yogurts," Kiene said. Homemade Baby's unique Fresh Chill™ method locks in nutrients and real food flavors, and extends the food's freshness for up to 30 days.

The Kienes originally intended the baby food tasting room to be a place where parents and babies could try free samples of fresh baby food before buying from their Certified Organic kitchens ( a process that requires rigorous testing ) Then the tasting room became a popular destination site for mommy groups and parents.

"When I had my son Jack," remarks West L.A. mother of two, Kim Bickerton, "I made my own food. But I work, and sometimes I didn't have time. Making green beans he'd eat was impossible." One day she spotted Homemade Baby's colorful headquarters – a whimsical array of original mid-century furniture and toys, designed by acclaimed interior designer Sasha Emerson.

Bickerton visited the tasting room with younger daughter Rylee, then five months old. "It was so laid back and friendly there," she says. "Rylee could sit and try different things. She liked it right away. Once she tried it, she wouldn't eat anything else."

"When children learn what healthy fresh foods taste like," notes Kiene "parents have already started teaching them how to make smart food choices for life."

To find out more about Homemade Baby's Tasting Room, and where its products are sold, visit www.homemadebaby.com.