Now, baby is eating out of the bottle

Every mother has them - hard times trying to wean an infant onto solid foods. Depending on the chow, and the babe's temperament, this could either go down the gullet or up the ceiling. The resolute mother then goes back to the blender, with a new combination of vegetables, cereal or fruit. It can be gruelling, which is why some mothers are starting to pick their weaning food off the shelves.Just pop the lid and spoon it to the kid.
Prepared food is a miniscule but growing part of the Rs 36-billion Indian baby food market which comprises mostly milk formula and dried baby food (like cereals and dehydrated soups), and it has thus far been cornered by imports like Nestle's Gerber, Heinz, Danone, and European organic brands like Vitagermine and Holle. Over the last year or two though, a few Indian brands have stepped up to the plate.
Down to Earth, the organic food brand by Morarka Organic, introduced baby foods two years ago with eight pre-cooked, ready-to-feed variants, including carrot khichdi and cream of rice at Rs 75 for a 200g tin (down from Rs 220 earlier). The price range for the category is typically Rs 150 to Rs 500 a container, which makes one complete meal. “Even if parents don't eat organic, they're ready to buy it for their children because it's healthier. It's also a handy alternative when they travel or leave their children at a creche,“ says Mukesh Gupta, director, Morarka Organic Foods Ltd.
A few years ago, the thought of feeding their six-month-old mash from the market was anathema to most Indian parents. But now they seem to be warming to the idea. While 30% of the parents polled on the website Baby Centre India still say they absolutely would not feed their babies ready-to-eat baby food, 26% said they'd crack open a jar at least once a day. While 22% admitted to the provisional use of these foods (while travelling or on an outing), 10% claimed they'd only opt for them if they felt they were nourishing enough.
“I look for products that are certified organic USDA organic, have no genetically modified ingredients, have no added sugars, no preservatives, BPA-free packaging and from a credible brandcompany name,“ says Momche2 on Babycenter.in.
International manufacturers offer parents the horn of plenty -from pumpkin and corn, and apple and blueberry purees, vanilla custard, broccoli and rice, spinach salmon rice, steam-cooked vegetable chicken quinoa and even lamb moussaka -concoctions grandmother never dreamt of. A working mum on Babycenter.in says the Heinz's breakfast series is her baby's morning staple because she's too rushed to whip something up every day .
Packaged food will continue to be a contingency food, concedes Parin Jain, cofounder of a company called Berry Tree that introduced organic fruit purees to the baby market a year ago. Although the company is registered in India, the purees are manufactured and bottled in Germany. While the brand's limited range of three purees (apple-banana, apple-strawberry-banana, and mango-pear) currently retails across 26 stores and several websites, Jain admits it's a hard product to market.
The 2004 government ban on advertising baby food in order to promote breastfeeding has made manufacturers reliant on word-of-mouth marketing.
Devendra Asnani, proprietor of the store She Novelties in Kanpur, stocks several brands of prepared baby foods apart from Berry Tree. “They're moving slowly ,“ says Asnani who pegs sales at around 35 containers a month, peaking during holidays. At Bon Appetit, an organic store in Pondicherry, it was the local French population and tourists who drove up demand for European baby brands like Holle and Vitagermine. “We've even couriered these to parents who sampled it here on holiday ,“ says proprietor Bhupendra Maru.
Delhi-based nutritionist Neelanjana Singh, who authored the book Our Kid Eats Everything!, isn't surprised by the sales.“We're all short on time, and cooking practices have changed,“ she reasons. But she recommends that a child be primarily fed home-cooked food, with perhaps one meal a day substituted with a packaged meal. “If a child gets used to smooth refined textures, it won't take to coarse foods later.“