Video: World Food Innovation Awards – best children’s food

New products in the children’s food segment not only have to appeal to parents, who hold all of the purchasing power in the supermarket aisles, they also have to satisfy some of the most demanding and unforgiving consumers in the industry – children.

The range of entrants in the best new children’s food category at this year’s World Food Innovation Awards demonstrate the very best in achieving this unenviable feat.

Little Dish entered two separate lines into the best children’s food category.

My First Pizza consists of healthy mini pizzas that are 35% lower in salt than the average chilled children’s pizza and contain one of the five recommended daily portions of fruit and vegetables thanks to a hidden vegetable sauce and carrot purée blended into the bases. They are designed to introduce little ones to exciting new vegetables such as butternut squash and spinach, as part of meal that most are familiar with and enjoy.

Its second product entry, Little Dish Go Gos, is a line of healthy and delicious snacks to support young children’s energy levels and give parents an exciting alternative to rice cakes and dried fruit snacks. There’s raspberry, vanilla and ginger flavours – each bag a source of fibre and protein to support muscle and bone health.

Mini Nom Nom’s main goal is to help children explore a world of food. Its complete chilled ready meal concept for children aged two years and up is presented in a multi-compartment format, offering dishes such as Moroccan chickpea and carrot tagine, Indian fish thali and Malaysian coconut chicken laksa. A previous World Food Innovation Awards winner, the brand is all about encouraging children to discover new cultures and cuisines – as well as stimulating all five senses.

Meanwhile, KiddiChef makes clinically proven ready meals for children that deliver the daily required intake of minerals, nutrients and vitamins. The brand claims to make meals that offer both physical and physiological benefits, in order to attract and educate children. It offers a programme of different meals, available to order through its website, every week.

A number of brands entered the best new children’s food category to show off their snacking innovation.

Naturelly is a gelatine-free jelly juice, available in three different flavours and packaged in squeezy pouches. Enriched with 25% of the recommended daily intake of vitamins A, C and E, it offers parents with active kids an ideal snack that acts as a hunger buster in between meals. It is low in calories – only 36 per pouch – and contains just 7g of naturally occurring fruit sugars in each pack.

Radnor Hills Mineral Water company showcased its new sour cherry flavour of school-compliant Radnor Fizz drinks, which counts as one of children’s five recommended portions of fruit and vegetables and contains a massive 45% fruit juice.

Yooji was also in contention with its line of healthy snacks for babies. The company offers 20g pebbles of organic veggie purée in flexible pouches, finely ground for toddlers aged between four and nine months or roughly mashed for infants from nine months and over. It also makes small 10g portions of ready-to-heat organic beef or chicken meat, or Marine Stewardship Council-certified chopped salmon or cod. Their melting texture fits well with the diets of babies aged between six and 12 months and reflects a wider trend of portion control within the category.

The Welsh Sausage Co had another meat-based innovation that it believes children up and down Britain will love. Its allergen-free pork meatballs – already served in 10,000 schools across the UK – is made from Red Tractor pork meat with an open texture, fantastic flavour and no additives – plus less than 1% salt and less than 5% fat. The product has been developed as a cost-effective solution to rising demand for gluten- and allergen-free food options among school-aged children and the UK, as well as the global population at large.