New Kids on the Block

Joe and Serenity Carr, founders of Serenity Kids, are shaking up the baby food business with one-of-a-kind meals featuring meat and healthy fats.

- NEIL ZEVNIK

If you’re anywhere near as old as I am, you’ll probably remember those cute little glass jars of puréed baby food from Gerber and Beechnut that provided busy moms with convenient meals for their little ones for decades. From the late 1920s through the mid-1980s, those brands cornered 85 percent of the market, powered by ubiquitous advertising and that winsome Gerber Baby. Bland and sugary and barely nutritious, they were the first “real” foods experienced by millions of hungry kids. But we’ve come a long way since then.

Bringing Up Baby

Joe and Serenity Carr met through the Paleo diet community. They found that eating plan to be life-changing— Serenity’s life-long stomach and sleep issues were resolved, and Joe’s autism symptoms were reduced and integrated.

But when they had a little one on the way, they ran into a problem. “We searched all over for good baby food and found that there weren’t any options that we could trust and feel good about. All we found in the market were products full of sugary fruits that lacked good meat and fats. So we decided to create a new kind of baby food and make it accessible for everyone.”

“Big Food has done so much harm to the bodies of Americans nationwide,” say Joe and Serenity Carr. “It’s been a real uphill battle to convince grocery stores that people want ethical products and will pay more for them.”