"We know that most mothers would like to prepare fresh food for their babies at home in order to ensure that their little ones get all the benefit of fresh, nutritious foods without any additives, but they frequently don't have the time or energy to do it," says Sandy Corbett, a member of the Food's team behind Woolworths' latest innovation. "Our new range is designed to make it easy for them to do just that."
Developed by a team of experts, including dieticians and mothers, the new range of fresh, chilled baby food encompasses both introductory single-component fruit and vegetable purées for infants from six months of age as well as complete meals for older infants. Many of the vegetables and fruits -carrots, butternut, sweet potato and bananas - have been organically grown.
Introductory foods include apple, pear, pear and banana, butternut and sweet potato purées; secondary foods for babies from eight months and up include puréed combinations of free range chicken, organic vegetables and sweet potato; beef, organic vegetables and sweet potato; and lamb, organic vegetables and sweet potato.
As appetites may still be small at this age, the aim has been to ensure that Woolworths' new fresh baby foods are nutritionally dense, offering more goodness per spoonful - no water or starch or other ingredients have been added to bulk up the product. Each pack contains two single-serving containers with resealable caps. They are microwaveable and can be frozen. Like all fresh Woolworths foods, each pack is sell-by dated as a guarantee of freshness.
According to Woolworths, the range is prepared under the strictest hygiene conditions to guarantee safety. Only the freshest, most carefully selected ingredients are used to ensure both quality and flavour. "Any mother will tell you that taste is important to babies," says Corbett. "We've gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that our baby foods are not only nutritionally good, they're full of natural flavour, too."
Woolworths' fresh 'really good food for babies' has been available on the refrigerated shelves at selected Woolworths stores and stand-alone foodmarkets nationwide from 14 August 2006.
