THE SOLUTION FOR EASY-TO-FREEZE BREAST MILK & PUREE

When Claire Hobbs started to wean her daughter she found a small, but significant gap in the baby market. She explains I have always been aware that healthy, homemade food gives children a great start in life, and exposes them to new tastes and textures, so when it came to weaning Jessica I was determined to produce as many of her meals as possible. Claire wanted to be able to make the meals in advance and freeze them but had the problem that the only ice trays she could find had a pretty small food capacity. A ‘eureka’ moment set her on the path to designing and having manufactured a bigger ice tray, specifically to meet the needs of parents and babies.

Claire took a prototype of the tray to a variety of mum and baby meetings and canvassed general opinion on user friendliness, cost and appearance and received very positive feedback. In particular she spoke to many breastfeeding mums who said they could see a use for the trays to freeze and store breast milk as the pre-portioned cubes allow you to know how much you are freezing and, like the pureed food, you can take out and use as much or as little as you like, avoiding unnecessary waste. The problem with the bags used to freeze expressed milk is that once defrosted the whole lot either needs to be used or discarded, which can lead to a lot of wastage, after a lot of hard work to produce it!! So the tray was slightly modified to incorporate expressed breast milk as well as food during weaning, and the Pea in a Pod Baby Food Freezer Tray was born.

The Freezer Trays are much more beneficial than a standard ice cube tray for several reasons:

The compartments are larger and specifically designed with babies in mind - there are 12 x 25 gram compartments (up to double the size of some 'ordinary' ice cubes) and 6 x 50 gram portions. You can freeze breast milk or homemade puree in it and simply pop out the required quantity required at a time without wastage. The trays have lids to prevent freezer burn, odours and most importantly cross contamination from other products in the freezer - vital for everyone, but especially a young baby. They are made of EU certified food-safe plastic, which is flexible and pop-out 'buttons' allow easy removable of individual food cubes. Being able to remove the cubes easily means that they can be stored in freezer bags and the trays are immediately freed up to be reused

The most difficult part has been juggling her children and the business. While setting up I had to put my daughter into childcare, but during the first 4 months of business I fell pregnant again. When my son was born I couldn’t take maternity leave so I quickly learned that you can still speak to a supplier or bank manager while breastfeeding! As Adam got older I had to make the decision to put him into childcare too, but it means that I can dedicate time to my children when I’m at home and the business stays in the office.

Claire admits that it has been a steep learning curve. There has been a lot of learning on the job, talking to people in the industry and investigating new target markets. However, the result has been a product that has exceeded our expectations and that has received extremely positive feedback from parents who have already purchased the trays.

Visit www.peainapod.co.uk to buy online or for recipes and information about weaning.