London woman launches a halal baby food brand consisting of South Asian flavours

Sadia Ahmed, a British Bangladeshi living in East London has launched a new range of halal baby food products under the brand name Oliver’s Cupboard. The incorporation of various South Asian flavours is what sets her products apart.

The 38-year-old mother came up with this idea after she struggled to find baby food for her now 10-year-old son years ago as the only options available at supermarkets were bland unlike how South Asian, Middle Eastern and African food taste. As a result, she had to make her own recipes to feed her child because she wanted him to build up a taste palette for the food that originated from her country.

In an interview, Ahmed said, “I created some recipes and I spoke to parents from different nationalities, Taiwan, Japan and Middle Eastern and they were feeding amazing stuff to their kids and I thought we were missing out. So I blindly sent over an idea to Sainsbury’s and they said they loved the product, but at the time I wasn’t ready but I knew I was on to something.”

Ahmed later left a stable job in London as a lawyer and took on the ambitious project where she came up with six different flavours. Her products were first taken up by Ocado and were recently selected to be sold at Asda.

She added, “The baby food industry is run by a particular demographic and mostly by men instead of women. So women can’t be complacent we have to be everywhere! Without women’s voices, we aren’t going to understand different things and in terms of babies it should be mothers at the forefront.”