FoodieKid

FoodieKid was born out of personal need. Christine was a busy, working mom who wanted her kids to have a healthy start in life. She had one child who snubbed existing pre-made baby food options. And another who refused to eat purees. Like many parents, she had no choice but to make everything from scratch, and in multiple forms (puree & finger food).  Overwhelmed with the time consuming process, Christine knew there had to be an easier solution.

FoodieKid is a baby and toddler food brand with a highly differentiated product offering. Our first line, Simple Starters provides meal packets of organic, prepped and flash-frozen ingredients that are nutritiously balanced and recipe ready. Parents choose the texture and flavor, eliminating the 'staging' that comes with baby food. 

Simple Starters is filling a large gap in the baby food industry: it is a 'better for you' product that can adapt to the needs of parents today.  

Let's take a look how it works:

Simple Starters is the first 'baby food meal kit' offering in retail with a very competitive price point at $2.50/meal. Existing alternatives in grocery are pouches jars of processed purée sitting on the shelves for 3+ years and there are major concerns about added sugars and heavy metals. Puree is also only relevant for a short time - parents are starting to feed solid foods much earlier and are serving “finger food first” to encourage self-feeding. Products today do not help with any of this and are missing a valuable opportunity.  New entrants in the DTC space exist, however they have high price points (2x Simple Starters), subscriptions with high minimums, and are mostly focused on purees.

The ‘whole food’ format of Simple Starters eliminates the need for staging by developmental milestones, and extends the LTV of a customer by 4x of Puréed Baby Food.

Frozen foods have never been as popular

This last year was full of big changes, including shifts in how we live, shop and eat. And one trend that has accelerated thanks to changes in lifestyle: frozen foods have never been more popular.  70% more consumers are buying more frozen food since March 2020.  Frozen foods are awesome for so many reasons, including less food waste, convenience, and added nutrition. These benefits are exactly what make Simple Starters unique in the baby food category and a super healthy and convenient choice for parents.

Our Team

FoodieKid is a women-led business made up of an amazing team of business development, marketing and nutrition professionals who are also food lovers and moms.  Christine Topalian met Nicole Silber (through a Google search!) and after pitching her idea, Nicole instantly jumped in to help create a flexible and time saving solution for fresh baby food.  Six months later Jessica joined our team and has led our marketing efforts since.  FoodieKid's advisory team Vreij Kolandjian, Mary Schroeder and Susan Lyne have deep experience across CPG, Start Up Management and Venture Investing.

Where we are today

We are an early stage food brand that has made significant traction in a short period of time. We are sold in NYC, CT, NJ, PA and DE via our flagship e-tailer Fresh Direct and 35 retail locations.  2020 revenue was 2x previous year.  We have a soon-to-be announced retail launch in 70 stores coming mid Q2 2021 in MA and CT and are aggressively moving to get into key retailers in the Northeast. We are focused on key retailers that have an online component to them such as Fresh Direct with broader distribution capabilities. Our thesis has been that baby/toddler food should live within an existing grocery funnel, however we do home delivery in New York and aim to expand regions once we receive funding.

What are people saying about Simple Starters?

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