At Tastybaby, we embrace the idea that foods should be processed or altered to the bare minimum. Ideally, we would all live on farms and grow the food we eat. We’d pick it the same day we cook it and consume it right after it’s been prepared. Some lucky folks actually live that way, which is a pretty amazing thing. In fact, the organic farmers we get our ingredients from eat most of their meals straight from the fields. The rest of us have to struggle to recreate that organic simplicity in our own lives.
 
Freezing is, simply put, the next best thing to eating food that is freshly picked and immediately prepared. The American Cancer Society acknowledges that “frozen foods can often be more nutritious than fresh foods because they are often picked ripe and quickly frozen, whereas fresh foods may loose some of their nutrients in the time between harvesting and consumption.”
 
Blast freezing, the state-of-the-art freezing technology we use at Tastybaby, allows food to be frozen solid within minutes. This preserves all the vitamins, enzymes and nutrients in our products. It also makes it impossible for unpleasant things such as bacteria, yeasts and molds to grow. That means our products are as pure and natural as the tiny customers we make them for!

NOT MY G-PAPPY'S FROZEN FOOD

- Shannan Swanson, Tastybaby Co-Founder
 
To freeze or not to freeze, that is the question. Growing up with a last name that was synonymous with frozen food, you would think I would always have known the answer. It wasn’t until recently that I understood why.

Ok, let’s start from the beginning. As the story goes, my grandfather, W. Clarke Swanson, and his brother, Gilbert Swanson, were working for their father, Carl Swanson (my great-grandfather), in the family chicken business. As the company flourished, the two sons began looking into new ways to expand their business. My grandfather had noticed a new trend among families– the wives had gone to work to support their families while their husbands were away in Europe fighting for our country. With some fathers not making it home, mothers were forced to provide for their family. Families would gather around their television to watch the news of the day, and the inevitable question would arise: "...What’s for dinner?” With little or no free time to cook, American mothers started making meals on the weekends and freezing them for use during the week.

Then, one of those moments happened in life. You know, that kind of moments when something that could potentially ruin you becomes your salvation. Sometime back in 1954, when an order wasn’t fulfilled, and my grandfather was left with an enormous number of extra chickens, he needed to do something fast. One of his employees suggested freezing them and an idea came into his mind (I kind of like to think it was when he was sitting in front of the television eating a chicken pot pie!): “Why don’t we become cooks instead of just farmers?!”

So, my grandfather gathered his team and they set out to make the very first TV dinner. It was nutritious, delicious, and… frozen?! Up until that point, freezing food was something for Eskimos. Americans were just starting to experiment with the concept. How were they going to get Americans to actually buy these meals? They would have to educate the public that freezing was not only safe and convenient, it was also affordable. They decided to give it a try and the Swanson TV Dinner was born. The rest, as the saying goes, is history!

So, fast-forward more than 60 years and picture me in the kitchen, making baby food for my daughter, Louisa. I’m looking fabulous, of course (maybe even in some high heels)… Oops, I’m getting off track. Anyway, as usual, my eyes were bigger than my mouth and I bought way too many sweet potatoes and apples at the farmer’s market. I blended the ingredients together to make a yummy dinner for Louisa and then, being a girl who prefers to be “tasty” instead of “wasty,” tried to think of what I could do with the left-overs. I felt foolish even contemplating the freezer. After all, I thought, ”I’m a fancy Cordon Bleu trained chef! What about Paris and my love of fresh food? The freezer– that’s for TV dinners.” Hmmm. In search of a reason not to freeze I spent hours on the computer researching fresh vs. frozen. And you know what? We have come a long way since my grandfather started the frozen-food revolution. Turns out that next to preparing and serving food right away, freezing food is actually the best way to hold in vitamins, nutrients and taste.

And so the ritual began. Each week I bought the freshest seasonal ingredients I could find, and depending on my mood added a little spice here and there. I put some food in the refrigerator to serve right away, and the rest… Well, you can guess where it went!

Now comes what Oprah would call my ”Aha!" moment. I knew there was nothing like what I was making for Louisa that was available to buy in the regular supermarkets. A few companies were trying to make quality baby food, but it was either too "gourmet” (who needs that?) or way too expensive. As far as jarred food goes… yuck! Meanwhile, Liane had just had a baby and was following my lead of freezing her own baby food, too. And just like my grandfather, I began to notice a trend among mothers. They were making and freezing baby food. But lots of moms just didn’t have time to start making purées after a long day of work. Others simply don’t love to cook as much as Liane and I do. We thought, “why don’t we start a frozen baby food business together?

And so, here we are, after lots of unbelievable adventures, ready to launch Tastybaby! Our research and reconnaissance took us from the farms of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest all the way to South America to select the finest organic ingredients. We’ve met some incredible and inspirational people on the way and built a team we honestly consider to be our family.

This may not be my G-Pappy's frozen food, but it’s thanks to him that we're finally here, and I couldn’t be any more proud.