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Original poster

What do you think of this as a small scale business proposal? (long explanation)

40 replies

handlemecarefully · 06/01/2004 10:50

When dd was smaller and pre-teeth(6 - 12 months old) I couldn't feed her jars - she hated them and I think she found them bland (certainly I did when I tried them to see what all the fuss was about), so I busied myself with making up Anna K and other recipes and either pureeing them or mashing them up for the freezer. With so little time as a busy mum I was often 'batch cooking' at 10pm at night and it was the bane of my life. Life is easier now that she will eat a wider range of normal food and can have what dh and I eat...(that's when she can be bothered to eat - bloody toddlers!)

However during that period I would have valued a frozen food health eating alternative to jars. All I could find was babylicious and they only did pure fruit purees not say baby friendly mushroom stroganoff and the similar which you can find in Anna K recipe books.

I was wondering whether there was a niche market for this sort of thing and whether it would be worth me cooking up healthy frozen recipes targetted at the older baby group. I would pitch the product locally only, and would develop a web page and advertise in local papers. I would take a minimum order to the value of £20 which would cover free evening delivery within a 20 mile radius of where I live.

I know that there would be all sorts of bridges to cross (I would presumably need environmental health clearance for preparing food at home - and I might need to make changes to my kitchen etc...but it is a large kitchen so I should be able to accomodate this)...

Would you have been interested in this kind of service when you had an older baby to feed? Tell me if you think the idea is a total waste of time.

Also, if the idea is a 'goer' does anybody have any suggestions about next steps that I need to go through to get it up and running (eg Environmental Health inspections / licencing)?

Thanks all. Hope I haven't bored you witless.

OP posts:
StressyHead · 06/01/2004 10:54

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StressyHead · 06/01/2004 10:54

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zebra · 06/01/2004 10:55

I wonder if there would be more mileage in offering one-day classes in baby/toddler cooking/healthy eating. I know I would have been a lot more interested in that kind of thing, myself!

Lisa78 · 06/01/2004 10:59

HMC - I would buy in a flash! Go for it - think some grants available for this sort of thing (ring and ask job centre where to approach maybe?)

Twinkie · 06/01/2004 11:00

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adell · 06/01/2004 11:20

Great idea ! I went back to work fulltime when DD was 6 months and used the organic jars, but would have much preferred something like this. Would have been brilliant to buy in bulk for a month and just get the food out of the freezer. I'm not working this time round so will try to do better ! If you do decide to get it going and want a bit of help give me a shout - I don't think I'm all that far from you, DH works near Hedge End.

roam · 06/01/2004 11:22

Brilliant idea plus the idea of cookery classes is good too something I wish I'd been able to have brought to my attention whilst pregnant and able to go to classes on too.

elena2 · 06/01/2004 11:28

Fantastic idea HMC!
I have often wished, whilst trailing round Tesco collecting all fresh ingredients for ds1's meals, that you could get frozen, no salt/sugar home-cooked meals for babies. It's easy enough when they're still on carrot/swede/cauliflower purees but once you start making them 'proper' meals it becomes much more difficult, esp. since that is the time when a lot of mums go back to work, and have less time.

We usually put some of our teas aside for ds1, but we don't always have things suitable for him, like frozen kievs, etc.

I would look into grants/funding too. Could you write to Organix maybe and tell them you are a business studies student researching how small companies started up and grew?

Good luck!

norma · 06/01/2004 11:42

Yes, that would be a great idea, but I think they would have to priced to beat what is already available in jar form ie less than 1pound per portion. The advantage with jars is that you can spoon out and heat up exactly what you think you will need, if you have a fussy eater, and save the rest to be used later. Frozen meals cannot be re-heated so would have to be a VERY good, tasty and economical product.
I agree that this type of toddler food would be attractive to me as I spend a small fortune on providing jars for my son's childminder. Just never seem to have any left-overs to plate up for the toddler to take to her the next day because my teenagers always eat everything!

Original poster
handlemecarefully · 06/01/2004 12:12

Blimey,

You all seem to think its a good idea which is scary - as it looks like I'll have to do something about it! Thanks for the comments and offers of help. Twinkie - some really good ideas, but I think I would start small and conservatively initially whilst finding my feet (i.e. halal food etc would be something to introduce later if the business becomes successfully established)...

Good point Norma about pricing etc. I would probably think about offering two differentially priced portions - small (for picky / small eaters) and regular portions. So mums who are not too sure about whether junior would eat all the food could plump for cheaper 'small portions'. I might also offer trial sizes (just a few mouthfulls worth) for mums to try out new recipes on their baby without incurring waste if they don't like it

Elena2 - you hit the nail on the head re why I thought there might be a demand. Even now there is little time to cook and accordingly DH and I eat pizza, and other convenience food which I don't really consider good enough nutrition for DD.....

OP posts:
zebra · 06/01/2004 12:22

I don't think it's a good idea, HMC, but if the others are saying they'd buy it, fair enough!

SenoraPostrophe · 06/01/2004 12:38

I think it's a good idea too.

One of the things that annoys me most about baby food is the number of empty jars you end up with! Dd ate mostly home cooked meals, but we still had jars and jars to deal with (as I used bought baby food in emergencies/when I couldn't be bothered).

With frozen baby food you'd be able to use much less packaging - maybe they could be frozen in cubes in bags (like the lumps of frozen spinach you get).

Twinkie · 06/01/2004 12:42

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suedonim · 06/01/2004 12:46

There are frozen meals along this line already on the market. I've seen them in Sainsbury's freezers. I don't know the name, though, or whether it's just a local thing to us. Good luck!

Blu · 06/01/2004 13:45

If this was available, I would have bought it. (I understand a shop called something like WILD does 'real' babyfood?)
BUT I suspect that you will need to be very careful in business planning terms, because unit costs will need to be quite high to cover essentials like Public Liability Insurance, maybe increased insurance for your home, packaging, and you will need to consider transport: there are laws about how long food can be in transit unrefrigerated/frozen, monitoring of temperature etc. You may also need a commercial freezer with thermostat, alarm, thermometer etc.

I suspect there is a potential market for 'outside catering' for kids parties, too, with proper home-made party food...but my Mum did catering (weddings, parties, that kiond of thing) and it was hard, repetitive backbreaking work for not a HUGE income.

Might be good to ask Zebra why she doesn't think it's a good idea.

florenceuk · 06/01/2004 13:56

You might want to look at this site - just written up in Junior: littleg . Their list of stockists is pretty exclusive though (Villandry!).

zebra · 06/01/2004 13:56

Keep in mind my opinion of any form of self-employment is lots of work for very low returns, but on this idea specifically...
Because I don't think demand is high enough. Maybe in HMC's area, if it's relatively affluent. Huge amount of effort and devotion to get you known to potential clients, and ultimately, it's not a product that people will buy a lot of, need for very long, or that you can get good margins out of per unit cost. There are already similar products, as others have noted -- these big brand names with their higher volumes are going to be able to have lower margins and still be profitable. Because I know I wouldn't buy it. Too much of a luxury.

Also thinking that jars, for instance, at least have the advantage that they don't thaw out inconveniently on you.

zebra · 06/01/2004 13:56

But catering for kid's parties -- that I do think has more potential in it!

bundle · 06/01/2004 13:59

a friend of mine uses some organic stuff which she buys (waitrose I think) in sort of disposable ice cube trays - can't remember the name though, sorry I can't be more helpful

Twinkie · 06/01/2004 14:04

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zebra · 06/01/2004 14:12

Hahahahahaha, Twinkie. I'm working on a 2nd PhD in "How to doss your life away on the Internet", actually

Isn't there a town in rural Wales that decided to remarket itself as a Mecca for rare books? Would be interesting to know how successful that venture has gone. I imagine book trade is tough, now, too with collapse of whatever that agreement was to keep prices at universal levels, competition from Amazon, etc. Still a good niche market for sellers of collectors items, though. We try to buy from local book shops as a matter of principle, whenever we actually do buy books. I imagine you can make it work reasonably well if the overheads (rent, lighting, etc.) are very low.

Helsbels · 06/01/2004 14:13

Have just read the proposal - no replies - sorry busy at work today!!! I thought exactly this when ds was small - wouldn't it be great to be able to buy stuff that is nice and home cooked - all the major supermarkets do 'nice' things for adults. I personally could not be arsed to keep freezing batches etc - I didn't make time so said I didn't have time. There would be bridges to cross but I think this is a brilliant idea, Best of luck. If you have a dream you need to go with it to make it work. I'm sure there are other mums like me who would love to feed their babies/toddlers decent stuff without having to do any extra work

Twinkie · 06/01/2004 14:13

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Original poster
handlemecarefully · 06/01/2004 15:31

Thanks everybody for the useful feedback so far....

Zebra - I'm not just looking for positive affirmation of the idea, so if people want to sound a note of caution then that's helpful. I need to be realistic about potential problems so thanks for this

On a positive note, the area that I would be serving is more affluent than national average(Winchester, New Forest etc)....and I think I could possibly extend the target market up beyond older baby into the toddler market, because IME many of us adults aren't too hung up on our own nutrition and will settle for convenience food, but nevertheless would like to feed our small growing children with nutritionally sound, no added salt etc meals (but don't have time to cook). Re the similar products available - apart from limited babylicious frozen foods (I've only seen pure fruit purees in the supermarket)I've not come across a good product range in Tescos/ Sainsbury's/ Waitrose ...and I've looked.

But it really is just a germ of an idea at the moment, and I know that I'll need to research it and its implications (like Blu suggests - public liability insurance etc)extensively before I can truly determine whether or not it is worthwhile.

From initial soundings however, it seems that it merits spending time into looking into all of the ramifications further..but when I do look into it in detail I am open to the fact that I might have to reject the idea if, as you suggest, the profit margins might be a bit thin etc!

Sorry - that was long winded!

OP posts:
Twinkie · 06/01/2004 15:33

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