Bitsy's Brainfood Co-Founders, Maggie Patton and Alex Buckley Voris believe in making it easier for... [+]
When the founders of children's health food company, Bitsy's Brainfood, Maggie Patton and Alexandra Buckley Voris, met they were both working at an educational nonprofit which advocated healthy choices for children.
The experience gave the women unique insight into the growing epidemic of childhood obesity in the country and inspired them to come up with a way to counter the crisis.
But what sets Bitsy's Brainfood apart from being another food product trying to "trick" children into eating their veggies is that Patton and Buckley Voris are being honest with both their product and their consumer. Instead of "hiding" fruits and vegetables into their products, Bitsy's embraces the fact that while certain foods are smarter than others, children are smart, too.
"We think eating smart and actually being smart are connected," the moms state on their website. "And that being healthy is about more than just eating the right stuff."
I spoke with Patton and Buckley Voris, the brains behind Bitsy's about being working moms who decided to take on the business of healthy snacking- for their kids and yours.
Anushay Hossain: What inspired two busy moms to start a business together?
Patton and Buckley Voris: Together, we ran a national non-profit focused on empowering kids to make healthy choices, including an effort to combat childhood obesity. Health and wellness are amongst the biggest issues facing kids today, and we realized that so much of getting kids to make healthy choices is about engaging them—and making healthy fun. Founding Bitsy’s Brainfood is grounded in the insights we gained through that work.
When we had children of our own, motherhood became an additional, key source of inspiration and motivation— and we realized, on an even more basic level, how few options existed when it came to organic, packaged, and authentically nutritious food for kids. We’re moms, and we’ve also really built our platform from the position of having a social mission. In the broadest sense: our inspiration came from wanting to do better by kids, and it continues to be about putting them first.
Hossain: Tell me about your 'lightbulb' moment, and when you knew you had a great idea worth investing in?
Buckley Voris: We started with this understanding that learning happens everywhere in a child’s day, and the idea of taking advantage of snack time and mealtime as teachable moments really resonated with us, both from the perspective of our mission—to educate kids about eating smart—and because kids spend so much time snacking that why shouldn’t they be playing and learning while they eat?
Our first children were born in the midst of the pouch explosion: For the first time, parents were inundated with convenient, nutritious options for babies, thanks to brands like Ella’s and Plum. And yet so often, the minute they were through Stage 4 Baby Food, parents didn’t know where to turn—there weren’t comparable, go-to, nutritious and allergen-friendly options when it came to “kids.” So we saw an opportunity to create a category—one that eliminated the guesswork, with products that parents would know they could trust.
Beyond that, and while increasingly, families were turning toward clean labels, the organic set remained pretty brown and boring. We felt this was a miss from the perspective of really wanting kids to choose healthy foods.
When we launched Bitsy’s Brainfood, people really didn’t know where to put us—particularly in the conventional grocery. Today, big brands are catching on and beginning to capitalize on this growing category, and we feel proud to have been one of the first brands to fill this need and create this category that we feel as though we’re helping to define.
Patton: Children’s health had been front and center in both our brains on a daily basis as we were working on an after-school program focused on combatting childhood obesity. And in a larger context, both of us had spent much of our professional careers focused on children and creating opportunities for learning out of everyday moments.
Somehow, these two pockets of thought seemed to converge in our brains one day, when we were leaving the office of the nonprofit where we worked together. (To be exact, we were in Grand Central Station going to catch the 6 train). The lightbulb moment was really why not make snack-time an opportunity for learning? not only by weaving in education, and making packaged snacks more meaningful, but also by teaching kids about healthy ingredients by using vegetables, and other key nutrients, in our products’ recipes.
Hossain: I love how your product does not “hide” the fact that you’re eating vegetables from kids. Why do more mompreneurs not embrace marketing to children on a more intelligent and honest level?
Buckley Voris: Our background as educators has really shaped our approach to communicating with kids — and our aim is to get kids excited about both learning (shapes, letters, numbers) and the flavor profiles and benefits of organic vegetables. So the idea of “tricking” them into eating healthy feels so counterproductive (although certainly, it would have been easier to gloss over the fact that our snacks were made with veggies and simply to call them double-stuffed marshmallow heaven, out of the gates). It’s funny, though, how outlandish a concept this seemed when we launched—and we faced real push-back from some retailers who felt, somehow, that the very idea of marketing to children was unprincipled.
And I do think that a stigma exists, in large part because of the kinds of brands that historically have made speaking straight to kids a centerpiece of their strategy. In the food space, marketing junk to kids is a huge reason why childhood obesity exists but for whatever reason, it seemed as though organic brands felt somehow as though they were “above it.” And for us, this mindset felt as counterproductive as hiding veggies. Kids are smart! And I think often, adults forget this simple fact.
Patton: On the most basic level, I think both of us are people who really remember our childhoods quite well. This in itself has informed a lot of the choices we make. So many adults have simply forgotten what it felt like to be a kid: how miserable it was to be condescended to by know-it-all adults and, on the flip side, how wonderful it was when an adult really listened and valued your opinion.
There is an expression when it comes to positive youth development which suggests that adults should be the “guide on the side” versus “the sage on the stage.” So often, we tell kids what to do instead of empowering them to do it themselves. To be fair, little kids can be exhausting, and no one wants to start their day with battles over the breakfast table so I think a lot of times, folks are just looking for an easy solution to solve the problem.
Hossain: The Bitsy’s Brainfood website is fantastic- informative and so kid-friendly. Tell me how you came up with the concept?
Patton and Buckley Voris: Our intention— and mission — has always been to create a truly kid-facing brand. But it’s funny because building the website the way we did created another moment when, I think, we created something that really deviated from the norm.
Other brands marketed to mom and their websites were filled with product details and not much else. From the beginning when we created Bitsy’s, we knew we wanted to use our characters to teach kids and to market “healthy” to them. Our website was part of our strategy to do this and to bring our main characters Bitsy, Buck and Baxter to life.
In the last year or so, we’ve adapted our website so that it tells our brand story and serves as a resource to anyone who might actually like to buy Bitsy’s products but also, and most important, stays true to our commitment to putting kids first, with the games and learning tools.
Hossain: What advice would you give to young women looking to make the leap from a secure job to becoming an entrepreneur?
Patton and Buckley Voris: Err… buckle up? We’ve said this before, but it’s so important to reach out to those who have gone before—to be unabashed about saying “I’m new at this; I need help. Can we talk?” Along the way, so many people have been willing to share their time and experience and while ultimately, our decisions have to come from our own learning and gut, there’s enormous power that comes from openness about not knowing what you don’t know.
At the same time, I think women sometimes have a tendency to downplay their knowledge, skills, and success. It’s important to give yourself credit where it’s due and to set your mind and vocabulary accordingly.
We’re really thrilled, for example, to have been handpicked by
Finally—if at all possible—find the right partner. Starting a venture is a leap in every way, and a strong partnership can be such a source of stability, perspective, and joy.
Hossain: What are some of the hardest lessons you learned on your journey?
Patton and Buckley Voris: There have been so many, and we continue to learn them every day (and more than once, in many cases). For starters, don’t just “trust” the experts. There was an instance when we really relied on expertise from several people that we felt we didn’t have, and it led to a costly mistake with a production run of our cereal that we had to discard.
When it comes to building a team, a passionate, less experienced, and committed hard-worker is often a lot better than a seasoned veteran whose heart isn’t in it.
If you are developing a product, your focus has to be on margin at all times, in order to make it work. Coming from the non-profit space, our tendency is to try to do as much good as is humanly possible and often, our heart leads us toward decisions that sometimes might not make the most business sense.
We do a lot with our snacks: they’re organic, packed with vegetables, fortified with organic-compliant vitamins, nutritious and nut-free, plus made in unique, custom shapes for learning. All of this costs money, and it’s hard to compete on price with other brands that do less while still marketing their products as “healthy.”
So we’re working on finding balance and trying to rein ourselves in, sometimes, in order to be mindful of the bottom line. If we want to be able to continue innovating and to make a difference, then we’ve got to stick around!
Hossain: What role do your own young children play in the kind of company you see yourselves as?
Patton and Buckley Voris: We could answer this question in a couple of ways. Certainly, we see ourselves as a company that puts kids first, even when that’s challenging: authentically nutritious, our ingredients are expensive, and our margins are far tighter than they might be if our main drivers were organic sugar and flour. And we take on an enormous amount of risk when we launch new products, but we’re working to move the needle for ours and for all kids.
We believe that already, Bitsy’s commitment to innovation has done exactly that—large corporations have begun to follow our lead by creating products that are marketed to kids and made with vegetables. Beyond that, we know how bonkers it is to be a family with young kids and so at a very basic level, we’re working to provide other families with young children with more convenient and nutritious options than they might otherwise have access to. Not to mention, we’ve got some amazing built-in taste-testers who love sharing their ideas for new products!
Hossain: So often women provide each other with the support systems we don’t get from society (maternity leave, childcare etc), especially when we become mothers. How is Bitsy’s born from a place of female friendship?
Patton and Buckley Voris: As co-founders and business partners, our friendship not only provided the momentum for starting Bitsy’s Brainfood, but it also has given us a kind of superpower—we know and understand our respective thought processes and perspectives, and we support and trust one another absolutely. There’s a specific sort of transparency that exists between female friends—and the ability to be our most authentic selves when we’re together affords us a certain shorthand that cuts through a lot of the noise.
Bitsy’s also was born from a place of trying to support other women and moms— and this objective is an enormous motivator that guides so many of our business decisions. This sense that we’re all in it together feels specifically female, too.
Hossain: What do you see for your brand in the future? Any plans to expand into other sectors outside of food?
Patton and Buckley Voris: For better or worse, no one could accuse us of dreaming small—and so yes, we have plans to expand. For the moment, we’re focused on continuing to build a brand that families can trust—we are what we say we are, and Bitsy’s is all about kids. Someday, we hope for the chance to inspire kids to make healthy choices… far beyond the grocery store aisle!
Hossain: What do you want to say to women trying to balance work and motherhood?
Patton and Buckley Voris: If at all possible, it’s important to have partners both at work and at home with whom to share responsibility. And while this usually means that on any given day, someone is picking up slack for the other, that’s all part of it— less balance, more give-and-take, along with a constant sense of feeling stretched.
More than anything, I think we need to give one another permission to be imperfect and give up on perpetuating the myth that there’s a simple solution or any straightforward strategy for managing or compartmentalizing this or that.
In a day-to-day sort of way, we try to stand up for and encourage one another, to celebrate our individual and collective success, and to hold one another accountable for making decisions that reinforce what’s most important to us, in every facet of our lives.
