I have a couple of titles. I am a mother to my son Beau (the inspiration behind my company), and I am an entrepreneur as the sole owner of Beau’s Baby Puree. In my company I do it all, I am the marketer, the recipe maker, the cook, the delivery driver, and the promoter of my business.

The purpose of my company is to make it easy and accessible for local mothers to give their little one’s healthy meal options.

My passion is to run my company in a way that will not only help people, but will give them the necessary nutrients to grow healthy and strong, and also to do this with the environment in mind.  I started this company because I saw a gap, there are so many baby food options out there, but majority are packed with preservatives and artificial colours and cooked with extreme heats to give them a ridiculous shelf life. Another big driver for my company is helping the environment, the plastic packs that most baby foods comes in not only contain a lot of chemicals, but they also can not be recycled. They are a one-time use packaging that gets thrown out and ends up in our landfills. Beau’s Baby Puree’s initiative is being a zero-waste company; we donate all the compost that is produced to a local farm sanctuary, and we have a jar return system that allows us to reuse the same jar.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a farmer. I grew up on a farm, I loved the lifestyle and I really wanted to work with animals and in the outdoors. I still love that lifestyle and I do very similar things through hobbies, and we recently moved into the country to give me the opportunity to have a hobby farm! The thing that changed was that I realised my passion for helping others and for working with others. I knew I needed a career where I could put these things into practice everyday by doing something more than just working on a farm.

My husband’s advice on maintaining my self-care routine, and not getting too absorbed into being an entrepreneur. Don’t allow it to take over your life, and remember that you can say no. If you are not your best self, your company will not be it’s best.

The best thing about running my own business is that I get to call the shots, I get to decide what I do each day, I make my schedule, I control what goes on day to day, and I get to turn my passion into a reality.

In five years, I want to see my company grow. I want to have staff to increase sales and production, I want to expand where our products can be delivered to, and I want to help more parents make healthier more environmentally friendly choices by buying my products.

A charitable organization that I think is amazing, is Cedar Row Farm Sanctuary, it’s a family run haven for animals rescued from abuse, neglect and slaughter. They established the sanctuary in 1999 with their two children, they rely on donations and volunteers to run. They open their farm up to the community for work visits and vegan potlucks and do sponsorships for their animals to give them a happy life.

Happiness drives me, I do what makes me happy, I hang out with people who make me happy, and I go to places that make me happy. If something, someone or somewhere does not promote happiness in my life I make changes, I don’t go to those places or I don’t hang around with those people.

My Website is www.beausbabypuree.ca and my IG and FB handle is @beausbabypuree. Come and say hello!

I start my day off by having breakfast with my son and husband, I love getting to hang out as a family before we all start our days.  It’s then time to start my work day so I bring my son to his Nana’s house for the day. 

​

My work day always starts by picking up the produce necessary for the orders that need to be made that day. We make all our Puree’s fresh so making sure I have the freshest ingredients is also important. Once I have picked up my delivery of produce, I make my way to the kitchen I lease to do the preparation. The sequence goes like this: clean produce, steam ingredients, blend to a puree, carefully jar and seal, cool and label and organize the orders. Once all the orders are complete, I get them ready to be hand delivered to each customer’s front door.  This is one of my favourite parts of my day because I get to meet my customers, I get to know them, I get to hear how their little one’s enjoyed their purees. When all the orders have been completed, I get to go home, I do some computer work, check my emails, contact local companies that support my business, and look into future opportunities. 
 

My greatest achievement is being a mother. Looking at my son and seeing the love in his eyes just makes me so proud. The greatest achievement related to my business is doing it on my own, I started making purees for my son and really fell in love with it, I then decided that this was something I could pursue as a profession. I started this company in the end of January and opened up sales beginning of March. I sold out my first week of being open and couldn’t imagine it starting off this well. Every week I become more proud of this company by the testimonials I receive from parents. I’ve been told that my puree was the first and only solid their child would eat because they were too picky, or that another mom’s child has severe allergies to most things added to baby foods and has never found a product that her son could eat and enjoy eating too.

This question will probably make me cry, but it just shows even more, how inspirational and how amazing she is. My mom is the women who inspires me every day. She is undeniably the sweetest, warm hearted, and thoughtful person I know. She will do anything for her family, she is always there to help you when you need her, she always makes sure you feel loved and thought about, by either stopping in to visit, bringing you a coffee, texting you to see how you’re doing, or taking you out to your favourite restaurant for lunch. She never asks for anything in return and always has a smile on her face. I aspire to be like her, I want to be known as the woman with the kind heart.

This is a tough question, I see a failure as more of a learning experience, rather than a mistake, something good can come out of the things that go wrong. While reading this question the first thing that came to my mind was going back to the question about “what is the best advice you have received”. When I started Beau’s Baby Puree I dove in head first, I spent all of my time thinking, preparing, or doing something for it. I didn’t pause or take time for myself, I would choose work over having dinner with my husband or putting my son to bed at night to get those final tasks done. I have realised now that I need to remember that there is tomorrow to get something done, it doesn’t all have to be done as soon as I think about it. I need to slow down, give myself time to relax, but still enjoy all the aspects of being an entrepreneur. My dad always told me to never have a business out of your home, to make sure you go somewhere to complete your work or do your computer work, because if you start doing all your work at home, you never turn it off.

I like how passionate and driven I am. I am confident in myself and when I come up with an idea, I don’t shy from it. I say to myself “you know what? I can do that”, and I try to tell myself anything is possible.

We can make the world more inclusive and accepting by being kind, and not judging anyone because they are “different” from you. Be warm and welcoming to all people, get to know people from all parts of your community, step out of your comfort zone, getting to know more people’s outside of your regular group of friends will help you learn and grow as a person.

Skills that have been useful in my journey thus far, is my ability to connect and communicate with people, my curiosity to try new things and think outside the box. Making connections and networking with local businesses and other entrepreneurs has really pushed my success more. And finally branding my company, I have stayed consistent with the values I set when starting this company and believe that this is a powerful tool to have when being an entrepreneur.