Why I Started Making My Own Baby Food (And Never Looked Back)

It was the summer of 2020. The world was in the middle of a pandemic, and I had just welcomed my third son into our family. If you're a parent, you know the feeling — that beautiful, chaotic, sleep-deprived haze where every day blurs into the next. Now multiply that by three boys under five at the time, a global lockdown, and a kitchen that never seemed to stay clean.

That's where this story begins.

The Jar That Changed Everything

Like most parents, when it came time to introduce solids, I headed straight to the baby food aisle. I picked up a jar, read the label, and felt... disappointed. Processed purées with added water, citric acid, mysterious "natural flavors," and ingredients I couldn't pronounce. This was supposed to be my baby's first real food?

I looked at my son, looked back at the jar, and thought: I wouldn't eat this myself. Why would I feed it to him?

That question changed the course of everything.

The Pandemic Kitchen Experiments

With nowhere to go and plenty of time at home (thanks, lockdown), I started making baby food from scratch. Simple stuff at first — steamed carrots, mashed sweet potatoes, blended fruits. My boys loved it. The colors were brighter, the flavors were richer, and I knew exactly what was in every single bite.

But I wanted more. I wanted the food to be not just fresh, but to actually retain the nutrients that cooking usually destroys. That's when my husband and I stumbled onto something that would change everything: sous-vide cooking.

Discovering Sous-Vide

If you've never heard of sous-vide, don't worry — I hadn't either. It's a method where you seal food in a vacuum bag and cook it slowly at a precise, low temperature in a water bath. Sounds fancy, right? But the results are anything but pretentious.

The fruits kept their vibrant colors. The vegetables tasted sweeter and more flavorful without adding a single grain of sugar. And the nutrients? They stayed locked in instead of getting boiled away into the cooking water.

I remember the first time I made sous-vide sweet potatoes for my youngest. The color was this gorgeous deep orange — not the pale, watered-down version you see in store-bought jars. He devoured it. And then reached for more.

That was my lightbulb moment.

From My Kitchen to Yours

I started making more batches. Friends with babies came over, tried it, and wanted their own. Then their friends asked. Then people at the farmers market started noticing. What began as a frustrated mom's kitchen experiment turned into something bigger — something that other parents were hungry for (pun intended).

And just like that, Sooby was born.

The name? It's a family thing — a nickname that stuck, the way the best things in life do. It felt right for a brand that's rooted in love, family, and keeping things simple.

What Sooby Means to Me

Sooby isn't just a baby food company. It's the answer to the question I asked myself standing in that grocery aisle: Can't we do better than this?

Yes. We can.

We can make baby food with real, whole ingredients. We can skip the additives, the preservatives, and the added sugars. We can be transparent about what goes into every jar and how it's made. We can use a cooking method that actually preserves nutrition instead of destroying it.

Every batch of Sooby is handcrafted in small quantities — because that's how you maintain quality. Every ingredient is sourced with care — because our babies deserve the best start. And every recipe is something I'd feed my own boys — because that's the standard that matters most.

To Every Parent Reading This

I know what it's like to stand in the baby food aisle feeling overwhelmed and unsure. I know the guilt of wondering if you're making the right choices. I know the exhaustion of trying to do it all.

You're doing an amazing job. And if you're looking for baby food that's made with the same love and care you'd put into it yourself — that's exactly what Sooby is.

Because at the end of the day, we're parents first. And when it comes to our little ones, quality nutrition from the very beginning isn't just important — it's everything.

With love,
Charlotte