MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT
Baby food innovator Sophie Baron
Sophie Baron, 30, co-founded Mamamade, a bespoke, healthy baby food delivery company, in 2019, with her husband ian. They have one daughter, Liba, two, and are expecting another baby in December. I’M ORIGINALLY from New York, but moved to London in 2014 to do a PhD in international relations at the London School of Economics. Shortly after, I met my husband Ian and, after graduating, I got a job at a tech company here.
But after giving birth to our daughter Liba, I suffered postnatal depression. I had lost my sense of self, so I decided to cut my maternity leave short and go back to work.
This did help me find my feet again. Yet, at the same time, I was trying to introduce solid foods to Liba. If you were a working mum, the only option then was to rely on supermarket pouches that were overly processed.
I remember coming home one night, when Liba was seven months old. I wanted a quick meal, so I could spend my time giving her affection.
This was my lightbulb moment. I realised there was a gap in the market for a healthy meal delivery service to help busy mums wean their babies.
After this, I started creating recipes, chopping the ingredients so parents could choose to mash them or serve them whole. Then I’d freeze the baby food, so it would just have to be heated up in the microwave.
At first, I was selling them in London, through Instagram, and delivering door-to-door. But soon I was getting orders from outside the city. So, I rented a kitchen in March 2019, and launched a website for Mamamade that summer.
I quit my job in August, too. It took a while to get Ian on board, but he also left his job in property and joined the company.
Now we deliver a range of frozen, plant-based meals nationwide. You can order bespoke boxes of 12 meals, which cost £2.75 each.
Lockdown was crazy, as we had Liba at home and Mamamade exploded, with a 300 per cent increase in orders in March alone. One mum told us we saved her marriage!
Indeed, I never expected such a community to grow around the firm. I’m pregnant again and, as I’m at a higher risk of postnatal depression, it has been so helpful to speak to other mums.
That’s the mission of Mamamade: to empower parents, by taking something off your plate!