Year In Review: Baby & Toddler Food

The following insights are powered by Nielsen in partnership with Unioncrate, an artificial intelligence demand planning platform that combines consumer behavior and historical shipment data to predict sales and inventory with up to 91.6% SKU-level accuracy.

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Welcome to Day 22 of Unioncrate’s Year In Review, looking at the 5% increase the baby and toddler food category experienced this year.

Baby Food

• For new parents, baby food is a kitchen staple that can’t run out. When consumers started stockpiling groceries in March, moms and dads made sure to grab extra portions of their child’s favorites to get them through quarantine, helping grow the baby food category 22.1% in the 4-week period ended 3/21.

• Adults weren’t the only ones switching to more sustainable food options this year—among toddler meal varieties, meat-based flavors dropped 95.3% during the pandemic while vegetable-based ones grew 380.5%.

• With such delicious meals, snacks became an afterthought: the baby and toddler cookies and crackers category decreased 21.6% in 2020.

Here Come The Highlights

• Food tech company Amara released the first-to-market line of sugar-free snacks for toddlers.

• Gerber announced that starting next year it will offer baby food subscription boxes that are curated to meet each baby’s nutritional needs.

• Texas-based baby food company Serenity Kids closed a $3 million investment round after a boom in business growth this year.

• Once Upon A Farm debuted a line of dairy-free smoothies for toddlers earlier this year, adding three new flavors recently after the line's retail success.

Up Next: Baby Lotion

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About Unioncrate

Unioncrate is an AI-powered Integrated Business Planning (IBP) platform that delivers demand forecasts with unmatched accuracy, collaborative visibility, and actionable intelligence—enabling CPG brands to plan and execute agile supply chain strategies at the click of a button.