Born from the real-life chaos of parenting three young children, the desire to nourish them with wholesome food and the need for healthy lunchbox fillers, Homemade Baker is on a mission to make homemade baking easier, healthier and more accessible for busy families. They believe that feeding your family well shouldn’t mean sacrificing convenience. Their ready-to-bake muffin batters are packed with real ingredients and zero fuss – because they know that parents need options they can trust, and kids need food that fuels their growth and play. Here, founder Jenna McPhee talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the inspiration behind her business, how she balances work and family, the challenges she has overcome, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
As an 80s kid, I grew up with a large selection of highly processed, ready-to-eat snacks available in supermarkets. Stabilising chemicals and preservatives, with lots of plastic packaging, were standard in many kids’ diets in the 90s. And to make foods that much more appealing, there was significant sugar and salt added. The emerging research around the negative impacts of ultra processed foods means that there is a growing awareness in regard to processed foods that people consume themselves and that they feed their children. This knowledge means that I am of a generation looking for other options for foods that are less processed while still appealing to kids and being convenient.
I am very interested in Early Childhood Development and with having three young kids (currently 2, 4 and 6), I wanted to do my best to offer them healthy food to nourish their growth and development. I am not a dietician, but my philosophy is to avoid including highly processed foods and additives in their diet as much as possible. However, I do not believe in limiting or restricting a child’s diet and advocate for “everything in moderation”.
With parenting, there is a lot of noise, and asking for snacks and “I’m hungry” is a constant refrain. Often, we turn to convenient and easy options as the parenting load is overwhelming, but I was finding a lot of these convenient options weren’t the healthiest, or the range of healthy options was a bit limited (and when you take out nuts, it was really limited). I just thought it would be great if we could expand the variety of options available for convenient, tasty, minimally processed snack foods.
I saw there was a need for a product like ours for the following reasons:
- People who want to feed their family healthy, nutritious food.
- Time pressures that busy parents are under mean that they want to save time on parenting tasks such as meal preparation and packing lunchboxes.
- Helping parents and families survive and thrive – nourishing their tribe and avoiding the unhealthy consequences of highly processed food.
The main driver behind the ethos of Homemade Baker is to make minimally processed and wholesome food more accessible to families – given the current pressured lifestyles that a lot of people are facing. The idea is to really ensure that children are well nourished during critical developmental years, and supporting families in setting out healthy lifestyle habits from a young age. We want kids fuelled for fun and to be ready to learn.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
The idea was stumbled on as we were trying to think of healthy lunchbox fillers for kids – which was made complicated by having to be nut free and meet the Ministry of Health recommendations for reducing food-related choking for babies and young children at early learning services. If you read this doc, it rules out a lot of options and involves significant food preparation – e.g. you have to grate or cook an apple to make it soft so that it meets lunchbox safety requirements.
Muffins were one of the only food ideas that I could come up with that had a bit of a healthy aspect to them and that my kids would eat. We were going through a lot of muffins and so I started making double to freeze batter to save time. The frozen batter was convenient and the muffins still turn out well that way – and the freshly cooked aspect makes them more appealing.
With having three kids under five, baking at night was not what I wanted to be doing, so I would have loved a more convenient baking option for myself. I know there are dry mix options available; however, by the time I’ve added eggs, butter, milk, etc., I feel like I may as well have just made it from scratch.
We are now on a mission to make wholesome, nutritional food more convenient – helping avoid highly processed and packaged convenience and snack foods that busy families often turn to.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
The primary innovation with our ready made muffin batter was the product itself, in that it is a complete muffin / cake mix where there is nothing to add. It already contains eggs, milk, oil, grains, seeds, fresh fruit and veges, where those are all usually required to be added to dry baking mixes that are already on the market.
There was some trial and error in relation to arriving at a recipe that would result in a product that produces a good baked structure after being defrosted and baked.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
My children and being a parent are my priority. However, some people thrive best in parenthood when they keep some of their personal passions going or have their own thing separate to the big job of parenthood – keeping that other part of their personal identity alive, so to speak. I feel like that’s what Homemade Baker is for me. I enjoy the creative outlet and a drive to build something while not being entirely sure where it will go or how it will turn out. It is quite forward looking, whereas I feel being present in the now is what parenthood requires of you.
As for balancing – I wouldn’t say I balance things work and family wise. It is all very chaotic – but fun.
