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High-Pressure Processing Preserves Baby Food’s Taste, Nutrition

HPP was an essential tool when GroGro's Malin Bruset set out to create a baby food that was as close to homemade as possible but could also be sold in stores.

GroGro explains to its customers how high-pressure processing preserves the texture and nutrients of the original ingredients while the taste, nutrition, and consistency of the raw materials are reduced with heat pasteurization.
GroGro explains to its customers how high-pressure processing preserves the texture and nutrients of the original ingredients while the taste, nutrition, and consistency of the raw materials are reduced with heat pasteurization.
GroGro

Bear with me for a moment as we try a little exercise. Picture yourself sitting down at the dining room table with your family. There are wonderful smells wafting from the kitchen—maybe a juicy steak and some steamed vegetables, and maybe even a baked potato. As you sit at the table, plate in front of you, expectant, you can almost taste it.

And then your mother approaches with a jar. She opens it and fills your plate. There’s no smell. It’s a dull, beige color. And you think, “Is this what I’m going to eat?” And you start to cry.  You’re nine months old, and as the rest of your family enjoys the delicious meal you’ve just smelled from the kitchen, you’re stuck with the jar of glop.

This was the scene set by Malin Bruset at the Cold Pressure Council meeting during PACK EXPO Las Vegas. As a nutritionist, a doctor of naprapathy, and a concerned mom, she was sure there was a better way. “As an adult, we would never choose eating canned food from a jar every day for every meal for six months. But that’s the option we have for our youngest,” she says. “And that needs to change and upgrade.”

Malin Bruset, founder and CEO of GroGro, explains the benefits of HPP and baby food at the Cold Pressure Council meeting.Malin Bruset, founder and CEO of GroGro, explains the benefits of HPP and baby food at the Cold Pressure Council meeting.Aaron Hand

Bruset, originally from Sweden, founded GroGro in Norway in 2018, determined to change the way we’re feeding our babies. A key tenet of the company is that food should never be older than the person eating it, but with standard processing and heat pasteurization, the shelf life of a typical jar of baby food is often up to two years, she notes.

With her first child, Bruset instead chose to cook most of her baby’s food herself. When her second child came along, she decided to get an education in nutrition. “The more I learned about food and kids, the more I realized how important it is and how little attention it gets, because the first two years in life, you lay the foundation of health for the rest of your life,” she says. “And food is a very big part of that.”

Fast-forward through publishing a book for parents and then teaching parents how to cook their own baby food, Bruset ultimately founded GroGro as a way to provide nutritious baby food to parents who might not always have the time to make it themselves from scratch.

Fresh baby food, with a shelf life

In a 2022 UK-based survey from Mintel, parents were asked their reasons for giving their young children homemade food rather than baby food from a jar. Getting their child used to the taste of homemade meals topped the list, followed by saving money, more variety in ingredients, more nutritious, and fewer preservatives. Enjoyable to make did not make the top five, which means there’s an opportunity for GroGro.

Though GroGro’s products are not cheaper, they check off all the other boxes. “We deliver on taste, nutrition, less preservatives, and a variation of taste and texture,” Bruset says.

INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for Food Products at PACK EXPO Southeast
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INTRODUCING! The Latest Trends for Food Products at PACK EXPO Southeast