Shaping Young Palates to Love Vegetables

You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. All right, Matt, it is never too early to get the little ones to start loving veggies big.

Time, right, Yeah.

Absolutely, It's a daunting task, right, I think, how long has your daughter? I read a stat on the Tiny Organics in a Tiny Organics Analyst report that said only ten percent of kids eat the recommended amount of veggies, and I definitely didn't.

Yeah, I don't even know if I still do. No anyway, So let's get to it. It's really really important. So let's enter into a conversation with Tiny organ or Tiny Organics. They are a partner by the way of Michelle Obama's veggies early and often I love that, and a member of the Food and Nutrition Innovation Council at the Freedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy at Tufts University. So joining us on Zoom in New York City being of Boston is the co founders of Tiny Organics, Sophia Laurel

It's taken a long time to get them on this program.

We're thrilled to be here. Thanks so much for having us.

All right, well, tell us about it, tell us and how it came to be.

Yeah.

Absolutely, we'll keep it short because we know we only have so much time.

But I'm originally from Finland.

There's an invention back home called the Finished Baby Box, and I saw a first time the impact that it had for families and families with children in particular, and moved to New York about thirteen years ago. We started the company with Carolyn. About five years ago. The idea evolved into food. We realized we could have the biggest impact in child.

Of development through food.

And I formerly am from Fiji Water and Beyond Meat and some of those experiences really defined my ethos around healthy food and making it accessible to people, which is really important to us to get. Like you said, only ten percent of children right now are getting enough vegetables, and we really want.

That to be all children.

Matt, you've tried it.

I have.

So.

I met Sophia through my sister in law. A couple of years ago, and at the time, I had a one year old baby who was not a picky eater. Like she definitely liked bread and meat, but she wasn't really into veggies. And so we were also traveling around, you know, moving from Berlin to New York, and it was just a difficult time to prep meals and take the time that you need for baby lead weaning and

So tell us about I'm curious about how you guys kind of come up with the recipes the nutrition that's in there. Talk us a little bit about that process.

Definitely, all of the food is organic, it's plant based, it's allergen friends, so no major allergens, and we really lean into savory forward, specifically a ton of veggies, veggies, fruits, grains and beans, all of the good stuff that's really nutrientents. We have worked with a neonatal nutritionist from the very beginning to help kind of guide these recipes and it's really a wide variety of different products that we have available.

One of the best things that you can do for.

Your diet is have a wide variety of nutrients, specifically vegetables.

I want these in my fridge, Like it would be a great little snacky your snack. How much do they cost and how does it work? Like, how do people get it?

Yeah?

Absolutely so so far we've just been directed consumer. We're just entering retail, which is really exciting. The price point is between like three point thirty six and five ninety nine. And like you said, we eat the food often as well, in we won't have time for our rent.

But the rent is that baby food.

Actually, as you think about it today, you know perade shelf stable of sometimes very sweet in the supermarket in particular. It's invented in the nineteen twenties. And there's really no reason, definitely no scientific reason that our children should be starting their food journey this way. So trying to introduce, as I Caroly mentioned, veggie's in a friendly and fun a way, and they have funny and punny names so otmg and apple pie oat meal and baby bereatable currier.

Some of our michell My broccoli bell.

Yeah, I love the apple pie oat meal. That's like the first one I had. So talk to us about the business as it stands right now. You have some kind of famous backers. Gary vaynercheck I know is one, and you're starting to get into retail. What is the what stage are you in terms of funding? And how long until the IPO?

Great questions, Matt.

So, we're post Series A and I have been in market about three and a half years. We've delivered over three million meals so far. Really, as mentioned, the growth unlocks for us, our sales channel expansions, so going into retail, Callen I share a little bit more about those efforts, but really almost ninety percent of our customers would like to see us in retail, also etail, Amazon and others.

You know.

Again, so far we've only sold on Janieaganics dot com. But this product is something that I think works well both having a online option to buy online and option to buy in store. And then the other growth unlocked for us is really aging up, so growing alongside the child. So some most requests that item is meals for later stage. So we actually think there's a really big opportunity between the three and seven rages and ultimately hopefully reinventing school lunches as well.

I want the Wizard of Orzo right now, Zucchini pa chickpe orzo pasta.

Yeah, I mean the great opportunity to create like a healthy alternative to lunchables, right, Carolyn, how is your experience at Beyond Meat and other companies? These helped you informed you in this business because some of them have had a pretty tough time of getting off the ground, right they have.

But as mentioning, I formerly ran ran operations in supply chain app Beyond Meat. It was pre IPO, but very much kind of defined my how I feel about especially plant based but generally.

Healthy food, the you know messaging.

At the time, it was a new category and we're inventing a new category as well.

Baby food traditionally isn't in the freezer. We're going to be one of the first products there.

So showing people that you can find healthy food in a different way and in a different part of the grocery store. Like we were saying, you don't need to give your baby shelf stable food generally higher in sugar. They can have fresh and frozen and the next best thing to fresh those options just.

Like adults can have.

So when you talk about the retail side of the business, I feel like I'm shark tank all of a sudden. But is it you know, Kroger.

Is it?

The regular Supers? Is good? Whole Foods? Like, where is it?

Yeah?

I think natural channel first. Okay, definitely makes sense. But accessibility is absolutely key for us. We don't want to build a company just for the one percent, So I think for us if you think about there's actually a program called WICK, which is a food stamps.

Right women and children.

Over fifty percent of parents in the USR on WICK. So that's another one of our north stars. You know later on it's a state by state effort OBUs a multi year effort to get onto WICK. But because we are frozen, if there's a food desert that doesn't necessarily have a the supermarket doesn't have a big fresh aisle, we could still be merchandise in the freezer asle.

So are you guys profitable?

Not yet but close close.

That's really interesting And Matt, did you know kind of tease at the beginning, what is the end game? I mean, there's lots of capital or we used to talk there was lots of capital out there. There's lots of money on the side, we know, but no, I'm just curious, do you guys want to stay private in terms of growing it out or is it the endgame to go public or potentially you know, link up with some other big consumer products company, a consumer food COPT.

Yeah, great questions.

We're open to all options, but probably the latter makes more sense. Stay private, and then you know, there's a lot of innovation that the big CpG companies aren't currently able to do as well as we could be. So we see that as an opportunity definitely. And there was a lot of M and A activity in this space in the late two thousands.

Three baby food companies.

Sold back then, and you know, very little innovation in terms of the pouch was the last big innovation in the in the category about ten fifteen years ago. So we definitely see the opportunity.

But we're starting to see more. I mean, Bobby has come up out recently, which is baby formula that's you know, healthier than you tip traditionally get in America, And so the whole segment I think is kind of exploding, isn't it or is it just because I had a baby.

I just have to say I've never mad for a long time, twenty five years and like you know, twenty five years ago, none of this stuff would have come out of his mouth. It's really charming, really cool. You've got to come back. Are you still doing subscription based? Just really quickly, like ten seconds.

We are, yes, tiny organics dot com. We're still available on subscription. You can get product delivered directory door.

I want this for lunch. Get it all right, Stay in touch, let's know how you're doing in terms of growth, and come back soon. Sophia Laurel and Carolyn Botitski. She tiny organg Tiny Organics. I love it.