Today I want to unveil this brand that I have worked on for over a year now to you. ๐๐๐
During the pandemic lockdown last year, I ran into an issue, my daughter cereal got finished and the brand was not in the market at the time, she is a picky eater and that brand of cereal is the only one she ever took.
Worried about what to give her, a friend in Spain who is also my course mate introduced me to natural cereal and how to make it at home and I started little by little, and surprisingly my super picky daughter started eating them without any struggle.
I shared the recipe on social media and friends started asking me for them, by the time we resume work, a lot of my colleague wanted this cereal for their babies too, so I started making for everybody.
Most Mondays I will resume with bags of homemade cereal and everyone will take turns to take as it would be enough. At this point I still did not even think of manufacturing cereal as a business, I just wanted my colleague children to eat well.
The turning point was when one of my colleagues came to ask me if I could give her a cereal mix that would make her baby add weight, I was likeโฆ Huh? I am not a nutritionist or a paediatrician, how am I supposed to know that? Her response broke me, Roberta you always know everything, even things outside of your field, so yes I expect you to know.
I told her okay, I will get back on that, then I started researching ingredients that could make a baby gain healthy weight and I mix it for her and within few months she started telling me of the positive results, I was so excited.
I started thinking of how to go about starting a cereal business after that incident, no project ever scar me this much, reading up requirements for starting baby cereal in Nigeria, was a huge thing, I was scared.
Then one day, I decided that yes, I will try and I will give it everything.
I remember the first day I met a paediatrician to partner in the project, I was scared I lied that my boss asked me to hire a paediatrician to work on a baby food project and he said wellโฆ if your boss can pay me, I will do it, we later discussed and agreed on a cost and I signed him on to the project.
That was how I got a paediatrician in our team, I would later hire a certified child nutritionist and a production scientist to work on the project because I wanted a brand that offers value much more than just natural food for babies, a cereal that will cover every nutrient a child needs to grow well and stay healthy.
The first big challenge we had was when the production scientist recommended eco-friendly production methods. None of the equipment he listed could be found in Nigeria. At a point, I was like can’t we just make do with what we have here, he said no, natural isn’t always healthy if not properly produced, by the time he carried out a laboratory test on each sample, I knew it must be eco friendly or nothing, I could see how much nutrients get lost during the harsh production process, I was just weak.
The closest we could get the eco-friendly production machine was Germany in thousands of euros๐โโ๏ธ๐โโ๏ธ๐โโ๏ธ
And even though I had the experts in the field, it was not easy, as we kept carrying out clinical tests after every correction to get the exact value that we needed until we got it.
It is also good to note, that my little weight gain research I did earlier was rubbished, it could produce weight gain not healthy weight gain, my paediatrician practically konk my head for feeding a child that ๐๐๐
The next step was getting NAFDAC approval, if you know what it means to get a baby food product approved by NAFDAC, you will hug me right now ๐
It was tough, I did it afraid, I remember the first day I chatted with Ebere to ask if NAFDAC do approve homemade production and she said no way, I checked the NAFDAC site and the requirement gave me an instant headache like is it ever possible to meet this standard?
But just look at where we are today.
I want to thank God and my colleagues and friends who trusted me with their children, even from the start when I use to produce with a blender (spoilt over 5 commercial blenders before acquiring the professional milling machine), now when I look at the blender production, can’t believe we gave the children that ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐คฃ๐
They turn their children to my testing and feedback mechanism, something I am not sure I could do๐ฅบ๐ฅบ
I want to thank paren who through word of mouth clinch to this project, your patronage pushed me this far.
I will thank my husband and his family, my father in law, my family in a separate post, this post will not contain them.
So Moms and Dads, here you have it, the Best natural baby and toddler cereal you can ever think about.
Made by certified Experts, Clinically proven to be nutrients packed, natural, tasty, super fresh and NAFDAC APPROVED
We’re officially giving you one less thing to worry about. Meals like youโd make at home.
All brands of Moppet Cereal will be ready for dispatch on Monday the 27th of September 2021.
You can pre-order on our site www.moppetfoods.com
It is N2500 for 500 grams
Suitable for children age 6 months and upwards
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