When it came time to introduce her first son to solids, working mom Shibani Baluja was disappointed to find that the options on grocery store shelves lacked freshness and flavor, on top of containing too much sugar. She did what she never thought she'd do... she began preparing all of his meals from scratch using a variety of veggies, grains, and spices -- yes, spices! The result? Knowing there must be other parents out there looking for easy, healthy, and better-tasting food options, Baluja left her corporate job and founded lil’gourmets.
lil'gourmets strives to cultivate curiosity in lil’ones with nourishing, veggie-focused, global cuisines from an early age to help them fall in love with vegetables and flavorful foods for life. The brand's organic meal options include Cinnamon Beets & Apples, Coconut Cauliflower Mash, Moroccan Butternut Squash, and Sweet Potato Curry. All varieties taste as if they were prepared fresh that day, making them a food option parents can feel good about serving to their babies and toddlers.
We caught up with Shibani Baluja to learn more about her and how lil'gourmets came to be:
Best piece of advice for a mom with an idea:
I believe in trying to live life without regrets, so if you believe you will regret not pursuing your idea, like I knew I would, then go for it! Make sure, however, that you have the passion to nurture your business through the tough times you will most likely experience. The mental load of a start-up is hard. Combine it with the mental load of being a mom and you’ll find (or at least I’ve found) that it is impossible to always be your best self with the pressure of both.
Also, make sure you have the support of your family. My family and my business partner’s family sacrifice a lot for us to be able to chase our dream. This would be a lot harder without their buy-in and support.
Small businesses have big stories. What’s something you’d love for the world to know about lil'gourmets that they won’t necessarily glean from your social media channels?
I never intended to be an entrepreneur. I had a challenging and fulfilling career and had never considered embarking on my own. At the same time, I struggled for years to have children. My long struggle with infertility led me to eliminate all processed foods from my diet.
When I finally had my son Jayden, and the time came to introduce him to solids, I was stunned by the lack of fresh and nutritious baby food options on the market. The only ready-to-eat options were over-processed, too bland, or too sweet. How could Jayden’s first foods consist of those same foods that I had eliminated from my diet? They couldn’t. My only option was to cook his meals. When I did so, I packed them with vegetables, beans, meats, and a variety of spices … I just stayed away from salt, sugar, and honey. I felt great about what Jayden was eating, but guilty because now I was spending much of my already limited time with him cooking and cleaning.
As Jayden became a toddler, I saw what an impact the flavorful foods I cooked for him had on his palate. He ate a wider variety of foods than other kids his age. I began to research first foods and found there is a high correlation between our first foods and our future eating habits. The options on the market, however, were doing nothing to help our kids learn to love healthy, flavorful foods.
I stayed in my corporate career for a couple more years, but I thought about this experience constantly. I decided that I needed to pursue this idea, as it felt like all my life’s experiences from working in my family's restaurants, to working at Kraft Foods, to struggling with infertility, to cleaning up my diet had led me here and this was my purpose.
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We launched lil’gourmets, a brand focused on globally-inspired, delicious, nutritious, organic veggie meals and snacks that are thoughtfully crafted with the goal of providing essential nutrients today, and to help your “lil’ones” develop a love of both flavorful foods and vegetables.
We strive to make it easier for every parent to feel good about what they feed their little ones, even when they don’t have time to cook. Together with my business partner, Becky, we are now on what we view as the biggest professional challenge of our careers, but one we are both so passionate about—to see if we can help reshape the baby food industry to one that offers truly nutritious, truly delicious options for our precious little ones.
What's your favorite story/testimonial you’ve heard from moms using lil'gourmets?
The one we hear most often is parents who tell us they don’t mind when their lil’one doesn’t finish their lil’gourmets, because they’re going to finish it for them! I think my favorite has to be the mom who confessed to us that the lil’gourmets she bought never made it to the mouth of her baby because she ate them all herself.
As a mom of 2, what's your absolute favorite baby product?
I think I’ve blocked out most of the baby years! For my kids, my favorite toy is Magna-Tiles. She had an older sibling, but when my daughter Mira was a baby, she quickly developed a love for them and was building towers taller than herself as soon as she could stand. Our Magna-Tiles are about five years old, but still get a ton of use from both my kids. I can’t say that about too many other things in our house!
What are the most important elements in your life that allow you to create boundaries and balance?
Being an entrepreneur while also being a parent of young ones is a very different experience than it would have been had we launched this when we could work 18 to 20 hours a day! Our families are already sacrificing for us to pursue these dreams; neither of us wants our kids to feel that sacrifice more than necessary. We try to be present for dinner/bath/bedtime each night without electronics, knowing that whatever still needs to get done can generally be done after our kids go to bed. This can get hard because there are many networking events that happen in the early evening, but it forces us to prioritize the events we attend and what we work on during our late nights!
