So it’s no wonder that new organic baby food brands are being born every day. And many of them are literally home grown. Says Dana Bowen, writing in The New York Times: “These baby food start-ups, mostly the brainchildren of parents who searched in vain for alternatives to jarred food, address the way parents’ dietary concerns are magnified by a highchair. The new baby foods are all organic, and they are sold fresh or frozen, not in shelf-stable jars…” You can barely keep up with the new organic baby food brand introductions in North America. HappyBaby Food is typical of a brand conceived by mother-entrepreneurs. Launched on Mother’s Day in 2006 by working moms Shazi Visram and Jessica Rolph in New York City, HappyBaby planned to focus on the local area but outgrew its marketing plan almost immediately. The brand was so well-received that it was picked up by Whole Foods and Wild Oats, major distributors of organic products.

Shazi was a marketing consultant who helped small businesses launch their brands, while Jessica worked for a natural foods company, so the match was a good one to start an organic baby food business. They had the wisdom to align with pediatrician Robert Sears, M.D., author of four baby books, who helped them develop HappyBaby meals.

The cool thing about HappyBaby Food is it’s cool – or rather, cold. Each HappyBaby meal is fresh frozen and packaged in containers that look like ice cube trays. Moms just pop out a single serving as needed. HappyBaby launched with five combination packages that included six cubes of each variety so meals could be mixed and matched. HappyBaby Food recently introduced non-frozen “HappyBellies,” the only organic immunity boosting dry cereals with probiotics (potentially beneficial dietary supplements) on the market.

Brands such as Evie’s Organic Edibles, Mom Made Foods, Plum Organics, Taste Bud, and Yummy Spoonfuls in the US, and Bobo Baby in Canada, adhere to the fresh frozen model. Earth’s Best, Gerber Organics, and Healthy Times brands package their organics in conventional jars. Some brands, like Homemade Baby, offer organic meals that are sold in the fresh refrigerated section. Bohemian Baby and other boutique brands are essentially catering services, delivering fresh organic baby meals to the consumer’s door in limited geographic areas.

The European baby food market is toddling along as well, but the growth in organic baby foods is not as dramatic as in the US. The French are the world's largest consumers of baby foods, buying about 95 kilos of baby food per year, according to the US Department of Agriculture. They're followed by consumers in Germany.

Barry Silverstein has been a frequent brandchannel contributor since 2007. He has thirty years of advertising and marketing experience and is currently a freelance writer and marketing consultant. He founded and ran his own direct marketing agency and held executive positions with Epsilon, a leading database marketing firm and Arnold, a major ad agency. Silverstein is the author of three marketing books, including the McGraw-Hill book, The Breakaway Brand, which he co-authored with Arnold CEO Fran Kelly.