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Meet The Expert: Olivia Bates From Nourishing Bubs

Meet The Expert Olivia Bates From Nourishing Bubs

Meet The Expert Olivia Bates From Nourishing Bubs 2

Meet The Expert: Olivia Bates from Nourishing Bubs

Baby’s first foods may be soft and squishy, but they’re also a major stress point for many new parents – particularly with ever-changing allergens and first-food recommendations.

Not to mention the questions parents have around pre-packaged baby foods. Are they safe? Are they fresh? How do they work?

It was those issues, combined with a love of food and interest in paediatrics that inspired infant dietitian Olivia Bates to take the wholefoods and wholesome path – running parent education seminars and launching Nourishing Bubs - a range of easy-to-use individual portions of single-variety fruit and vegetable purees. Made from nothing but pure 100% Australian produce, snap-frozen to lock in nutrients, without the need for damaging heat treatment.

Today we sat down with the down right lovely Olivia Bates and got to know her a bit better. We will be starting an expert series with Olivia and you can find out more about Baby Led Weaning here.

What are your qualifications?

I have a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Wollongong and an additional certificate in paediatric nutrition.

What inspired your love of food and nutrition?

When I was at school, I decided I wanted to be either a doctor or a chef - two completely opposite ends of the spectrum! However, my mum encouraged me to keep cooking as a hobby. This was such great advice as you often hear of chefs having to work beyond crazy hours and becoming burnt out, whereas I use cooking as a method of relaxing and winding down after a long day.

For me, I feel like I was able to find a happy medium - by basically becoming the doctor of food. My choice to become a dietitian allowed me the options to work in hospitals, if I wanted to go down the clinical route, or as I have preferred to do, play with food every day and take the industry route. I also consider parts of my work to fall in the domain of public health, as one of our main marketing initiatives is running regular education classes around infant and childhood nutrition.

I was always passionate about small children and wanted to specialise in paediatrics, so I turned my focus to infant and toddler nutrition. I get to play with food but I put more of a focus on it being fun and obviously encouraging healthy behaviours that will carry them through to adulthood.

Tell us about your background and experience?

During university, I worked as a nanny and babysitter, so learned a lot about the issues parents had around feeding and mealtimes. Once I completed university, my first job was as a dietitian for a start-up almond milk company. It was during this time that I really fostered my interest in working in the food industry and started to consider doing something of my own. As I had always wanted to do something in the kids space, I decided to also complete an extra certificate in paediatric nutrition and it was through this that I actually came up with Nourishing Bubs.

During the 6 years I have been out of university I have also done various freelance jobs including being the cooking assistant to celebrity nutritionist Zoe Bingley-Pullin. I have also done significant recipe development and nutrition writing for various publications. I still do some private practise, as well as corporate nutrition classes. My broad range of experiences has allowed me to meet many people and gain significant experience in various areas, for which I am forever grateful.

What was the inspiration behind your business, Nourishing Bubs?

I actually came up with my idea for Nourishing Bubs when I was completing my certificate in infant nutrition. Having worked in the food industry for the almond milk company, I was also obviously very interested in food production, so while completing the certificate I also took the time to visit supermarkets and look what was available in terms of baby food.

I was pretty horrified to find that most of the options were shelf stable options that could sit there for years. Common sense told me there had to be something wrong with this and I looked at how this was achieved through food processing. I found out the method of retort packing (which is used to make those pouches shelf stable) involved exposing the pouches to temperatures of over 100 degrees C for 10 minutes.

I knew that this meant many of the nutrients would end up being destroyed, leaving little more than a bag of kilojoules. Beyond that, I had an issue with the fact that everything was pre-mixed and not available as single vegetable or fruit options. And on top of that, the fact that all options were often heavily sweetened with fruit, meaning that children could never understand what foods actually tasted like. This was really the birth of Nourishing Bubs, a product that ticked all the boxes that nothing else did.

What’s Nourishing Bubs philosophy?

My business philosophy is to always stay true to what we set out to do and that is to provide healthy, wholesome and ultimately nourishing products. I am also very focused on building strong, long-lasting relationships with both our suppliers and customers and it is through this we have been able to develop trust. Ultimately, I also want to ensure myself and those who represent the Nourishing Bubs team put kindness above all else. 

What's been one of the most surprising things you've learnt since working in infant nutrition?

I have been shocked by the lack of accurate and up to date information out there for parents when it comes to infant feeding and nutrition. This means parents are left feeling so overwhelmed and nervous when it comes to feeding their babies solids. 

What's important for you to educate new parents about?

Part of the reason we run education as part of our marketing strategy, is that as mentioned above, we have found there is a lack of consistent and comprehensive information available to parents when it comes to infant feeding and nutrition.

Parents are already so overwhelmed having a new baby and often extremely sleep deprived and then suddenly they need to start solids and are getting varying advice from different sources. The goal of our education is really to cut through the clutter and make it an enjoyable experience for both parent and bubba. One of the most important tips I talk about when discussing introducing solids, is the need to commence solids in a calm and positive manner, as babies really pick up on what is going on around them. So if they sense stress, they can create a negative association around feeding time and food.

The other key message is around the introduction of the allergens, as there has been a lot of changes around this in recent years, with the most significant being new recommendations which say all allergens should be introduced by 11 months and that eggs should be one of babies’ first foods. 


Visit Nourishing Bubs at www.nourishingbubs.com and connect at Facebook and Instagram: @nourishingbubs

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