Best Organics
Winner
Best Variety
It’s a whole new world when your baby is ready for solids. We looked at a long list of baby meal delivery services to find the best of the best, with Little Spoon coming out on top.
You want to offer the highest quality, nutritious foods, but you’re worried about the quality of what you find in the grocery store, and you’re short on time to prepare tiny meals from scratch. Maybe you’re just trying to stay out of the store as much as possible these days and like the idea of meal delivery. We understand this and the challenge it presents to busy parents today.
We considered many factors, including the quality, nutrition, and freshness of foods, variety, developmental stages, customer reviews, pricing, and more to build this list. Each family’s needs are a little different, and feeding babies isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. We love Little Spoon for everything they offer, but others ranked nearly as high.
Want to know more about how the best baby food delivery services stack up against each other when it comes to the very best for your baby? Here’s what we loved about each.
Little Spoon
BEST BABY FOOD DELIVERY SERVICE
Little Spoon has an excellent reputation for delivering quality, wholesome foods that your baby or toddler will love. Little Spoon offers a line of plant-based Baby Blends made using only organic ingredients that are free of all the things you don’t want in your baby food, like preservatives, added sugar, GMOs, and other additives. Their lineup of purees features more than 80 organic ingredients.
This company also offers a menu of “Plates,” which are healthy, nutritious meals for toddlers and older kids. Made with mostly organic ingredients, Plates are heat & eat meals that you can have in front of your child in a matter of minutes. Having the option to transition to toddler meals without finding a new meal delivery service is a big perk.
All baby, toddler, and kids meals are produced in small batches to preserve flavor, freshness, and nutritional quality. Meals stay fresh in your refrigerator for up to two weeks. You can also freeze them for up to three months, which is perfect if you’re looking to have a stash of healthy baby food for the future. Simply thaw, heat, and serve fresh frozen meals months after they’re delivered.
Little Spoon makes an effort to get to know you and your baby by having you answer a few questions about your baby’s needs and preferences. A meal plan will be developed for your baby with pediatricians and nutritionists’ guidance, and it adapts automatically as your baby grows and hits new milestones. Of course, you always have the option to go in and modify your order if needed.
Pricewise, they rank well on the budget-friendly scale. Their baby food blends start at about $2.74 per meal, with Plates costing a bit more.
Tiny Organics
BEST ORGANIC BABY FOOD DELIVERY
Tiny Organics is devoted to creating 100% organic, finger-food meals for babies and toddlers. The philosophy behind Tiny Organics meals is that by introducing your baby to 100 healthy, wholesome flavors by the age of two, you’re setting them up for a lifetime of adventurous and healthy eating.
You won’t find any purees on the menu of Tiny Organics. Their ready to eat meals are perfect for baby-led weaning, which encourages babies to feed themselves soft, mashable solid food even before they have their first teeth. As a result, they offer more than a dozen choices that are perfect for finger feeding and babies who are just learning to use utensils.
All of Tiny Organic’s toddler and baby meals are free of the big 8 common food allergens. Their meals are plant-based and strongly favor savory taste profiles, with only a handful of naturally sweet meal options. A few examples of Tiny Organic’s meals include the Wizard of Orzo, Bananas Foster, and The Perks of Being a Cauliflower.
Cerebelly
MOST UNIQUE INGREDIENTS
Cerebelly is a baby food company that focuses on the connection between early nutrition and brain development. You can think of the team at Cerebelly as food scientists! The founder, a neurosurgeon, and mom recognized that while there were many companies out there, few that are found in your local grocery store really hit the target of maximizing nutrition for brain development in the youngest eaters.
Getting the most out of Cerebelly is easy. Simply tell them a bit about your little one, and they suggest the best pouches for your baby’s current development and age. The pouches filled with healthy foods are shelf-stable and good for up to 18 months if unopened. Once opened, they stay fresh for 48 hours. All of Cerebelly’s blends are designed for the youngest eaters between 4 and 24 months. Plus, Cerebelly is budget-friendly, with each pouch costing less than $3.
Nurture Life
BEST FINGER FOODS
Nurture Life has a baby food menu designed for babies from 10-24 months of age, you’ll find plant-based meals and healthy meals containing lean, antibiotic-free animal protein like chicken and veggie stew or easy-to-eat beef meatloaf cubes. Healthy fats important to brain development and the growth of your child can be found in most meals too.
With more than a dozen finger food options for your baby, Nurture Life does an excellent job of offering a variety of tastes and textures that appeal to both adventurous and picky eaters.
Nurture Life isn’t entirely organic, but they have a commitment to using only the highest quality ingredients. Real, wholesome, and fresh fruits and vegetables go into every meal. Never anything processed, and meals are delivered to you fresh, never frozen. Organic veggies and ingredients sourced from sustainable farms are used whenever possible.
What we really like about Nurture Life is that they do more than just deliver meals. Healthy food focused recipes are designed by dieticians who understand the importance of pediatric nutrition. Each meal meets the highest nutritional standards, and you can count on a whole serving of fresh veggies to go into each serving. Their meals are free of artificial flavors and coloring, high fructose corn syrup, and nitrate-free.
Nurture Life will also grow with your baby, with meal options for toddlers, children, and teens. The one downside of Nurture Life is that it falls on the pricier end of the baby food spectrum. Their baby finger food meals cost just under $7 per serving.
Once Upon a Farm
Once Upon a Farm is committed to high standards by using all USDA certified organic, non-GMO, wholesome baby food pouches free of added sugar, preservatives, and anything artificial. Once Upon a Farm was co-founded more than five years ago by award-winning actor Jennifer Garner. Since then, the company has earned a reputation of excellence for their baby food pouches.
What we really like about this company, in addition to their commitment to wholesome pureness, is the incredible variety of purees they offer. Currently, they offer about thirty different varieties for babies 6 months and older. Did we also mention that they are all dairy-free? This is a huge plus for babies who haven’t yet been introduced to dairy and for toddlers who have a dairy allergy or sensitivity.
You can order Once Upon a Farm baby food subscription, choose the frequency of shipments and have
the pouches delivered fresh to your door. They are perishable, so they will require refrigeration, must be refrigerated.
Lil Gourmets
Lil Gourmets is a baby food company that began with a mom, Shibani, who found it impossible to use prepared baby food without the flavor, texture, or food quality being less than impressive. She wanted more for her growing babies than over processed, bland baby food. This inspired her personal mission to make all of her baby food from scratch with high-quality, healthy ingredients and spices.
The veggie focused approach to baby food was a clear success when her baby bloomed into a toddler with an impressive palate. Shibani knew there had to be other moms facing similar struggles, so Lil Gourmets was born!
What makes Lil Gourmets so unique is their veggie-first approach to baby food. Vegetables and beans are the primary ingredients in all menu items. Everything is free of added salt and sugar. The Lil Gourmets process includes minimal processing so the food is served to your child with the look, taste, and texture of fresh, homemade baby food. All items from Lil Gourmets must be refrigerated.
Baby Food Delivery Service Buying Guide
Stages
Some babies begin eating solids around 6 months, while others aren’t quite ready for a bit longer. If you plan on starting with pureed food, it’s important to begin with single ingredients. It really doesn’t take long for your baby to move through those initial stages of experimenting with first purees to the following stages of thicker blends, and then eventually chunky meals and finger foods.
It’s important that baby food delivery services offers developmentally appropriate selections for your growing baby. Little Spoon is a great example of a company that provides choices for every stage of development.
Ingredients
You don’t want to put just anything into that little tummy, and you also want to be mindful of foods associated with food allergies and intolerances. Most companies make a point of staying away from the big 8 allergens – dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish, shellfish, and wheat, but not all do.
Tiny Organics is a good choice if you’re worried about allergens. They’re also a good choice if organic is important to you, which brings us to the next point. A good baby food delivery service will use non-GMO, organic, plant-based, nutritionally dense foods that encourage neurological development and healthy growth.
Fresh, Frozen, or Shelf-Stable
You can find nutritious, wholesome choices that are both fresh and frozen, so this one is really a matter of personal preference. You’ll find that many of the most popular companies, like Nurture Life and Little Spoon, are fresh, so they need to be refrigerated and have a limited shelf life.
Raised Real is one of the few that deliver frozen meals to your door. These are great if you’re looking to stock up or just like the idea of having a quick, healthy meal for the little eater on hand. Other companies, especially those that offer pouches, are shelf-stable and can stay good for months in a moderate, climate-controlled environment.
Flexibility
Little ones are notoriously picky eaters. What they loved yesterday, they might not want anything to do with tomorrow. Others are picky about textures and certain flavors. The last thing you want is to get locked into a subscription service with limited options to adapt the weekly menu to your needs.
Some services let you choose a la carte selections, while others provide meal plans based on your answers to a few questions. When selecting the meal plan option, always ensure that you can exclude ingredients, modify the stage, or take out selections that just don’t work for you.
Price
Price is another important factor. You want only the best going in that little tummy, but some services charge upwards of $5-$6 per serving, which is a lot if you’re on a tight budget or dealing with the pickiest of eaters. Fortunately, there are subscriptions available to fit within most budgets, with some options coming in under $3 per serving.
Bottom Line
We looked at a long list of baby food delivery services and found the very best. Little Spoon wins the tops spot because they hit every single detail that’s important to parents of babies and toddlers who are looking for a bit of convenience and help in making mealtimes happy with their little ones. But Little Spoon isn’t the only company we loved, and we know that so much depends on personal preferences.
When your baby is ready for solids, and you like the idea of knowing your feeding that little tummy the freshest, most nutritious foods, take a look at the companies on this list. We’re confident that you’ll find one that is the perfect fit for your family.