Babylife Organics releases heavy-metal data on baby food packages

Research shows that toxic heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium still routinely taint baby food in the U.S.

Richard Harford, CEO at Babylife Organics, wants to do something about it.

“The FDA, still to this day, has not established heavy metal standards for baby food,” Harford says.

Babylife Organics, a new company, is the first baby food brand in the U.S. to receive Regenerative Organic certification; it also tests its supply chain at four different stages for arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury. (Other baby food brands also employ regenerative farming practices but are certified by different organizations.)

“We’re the first organic baby food, first baby food of any kind, that will be providing heavy metal test results by batch at the arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury parts per billion level,” Harford says. The company says it is the first and only business to proactively publish verified, third-party heavy metal test results measured in parts per billion—not just benchmarks—for every batch of finished goods. Results can be accessed via a QR code on each package.

“It’s a maverick spirit that we're trying to bring to a category that feels like it has big issues and solutions aren't coming fast enough,” Harford says. “The solutions are really needed because they're for the health and well-being of our babies, so it's important for society.”

Related:Maryland legislators seek mandatory testing for baby foods

Babylife Organics’ line of Stage 1 jars and Stage 2 pouches launched Tuesday at Whole Foods Market across the country. The 15 flavor varieties include Spinach, Apple, Pear and Blueberry; Peach, Pear, Strawberry, Banana and Watermelon; Carrot, Pear, Beet and Blackberry.

The idea came from two food industry veterans: Doug Brent, founder and chairman of Babylife Organics and co-executive chairman for Made in Nature; and Harford, who has served as CEO of Sprout Foods, co-CEO at Made In Nature and started his career at Nestlé.

Harford says each independently-tested product complies with or is better than the benchmarks set forth by the European Union Food Safety Policy and the Clean Label Project’s First 1,000 Days Promise, both superior standards for heavy metal levels in food.

“We'll be reporting our test results for the four heavy metals, for each batch, each lot code in real time for the consumers to understand exactly what the arsenic parts per billion levels are versus what the EU and CLP standards are,” Harford says. “This is revolutionary in the category. Nobody has done this. Nobody has been full disclosure like this. There hasn't been this kind of transparency.”

Harford says the idea for Babylife Organics came in the 2018, when the baby food industry hit a “crisis level” after Consumer Reports and Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) found toxic heavy metals in baby food containers it tested. “Parents were so desperate for information and solutions,” Harford says. “And were scared. Watching the nightly news, seeing stories about toxic metals in baby food and there were really no great solutions.”

Finding a supply chain solution

That got Harford and Brent thinking about solutions.  

“We all saw what was going on,” Harford says. “We’ve been sourcing organic fruits and vegetables internationally in multiple countries and continents around the world for decades.”

More transparency was needed within the supply chain.

“I think this is a problem that can be solved,” Harford recalls saying. He knew exactly how the current supply chain worked for small- to medium-sized organic baby food companies. The multi-tiered, broker-run system meant companies would seasonally purchase ingredients, from different parts of the world in the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere.

“You really weren't completely sure all the time where your product was coming from, what farms it was all done through—you know, buying and rebuying through broker networks,” he says. “We just knew that was part of the problem. People didn’t have full control of the supply chain.”

To find a solution, Babylife Organics partnered with Elite Naturel, a fair trade, USDA Organic company in Turkey that works with more than 8,200 farmers.

“They’re a big producer of juices,” says Harford, who previously worked with Elite Naturel while at Made in Nature. “So, they have a vast array of fruits and vegetables.” They also own the majority of their farms and supply, he says.

“We knew we could create a supply chain where we could be in control of the whole thing from the farms, at the soil level, all the way through production, harvesting and bringing the crops in,” Harford says. “So, we developed, with them, a four-point heavy metal testing process.”

Trademarked as “Soil to Spoon Transparency,” Babylife Organics tests four times from farming through production: the soil; the crops as they come off the farms as raw ingredients; as prepared ingredients as they are pureed and put into aseptic packaging; and the final ready-to-eat product.

To start, Babylife Organics is working with about a dozen farms via Elite Naturel. “Some are wild and some are ag farms, depending on what ingredients are grown,” Harford says. “The acreage is about the size of 150 Manhattan islands. They own a lot of farmland.”

From left, Richard Harford, CEO, and Doug Brent, chairman, co-founded Babylife Organics, a new brand setting a high standard for supply-chain transparency. Credit: Babylife Organics

Transitioning to regenerative agriculture and into Whole Foods

At first, Babylife Organics’ sole focus centered around toxic heavy metal safety in baby foods.

“Once we started digging deeper and partnering with [Elite Naturel], we realized all the things we could do,” Harford says. “They've been farming in a regenerative, organic way for generations. There has not been a lot of conventional farming introduced to Turkey.”

The partnership with Elite Naturel became part of Harford’s pitch to Whole Foods. “When we brought the proposition to Whole Foods and told them about our heavy metal safety proposition and what we're going to be able to provide in terms of parts per billion level testing results against standards, we also told them about our partnership,” he says. “And we thought that we would be able to be the first brand launched into the U.S. that would be regenerative, organic certified. They were so excited.”

He adds, “It's a big initiative for Whole Foods to support regenerative agriculture, and this project was really hard because we weren't just certifying one farm and one crop.”

For about a year, the brand worked with Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director at Regenerative Organic Alliance, and her team to become the first Regenerative Organic Certified baby food in the U.S.

“What we've come to learn with our work at Whole Foods and ROA is that regenerative farming actually can reverse climate change,” Harford says. “Working through the whole process to get our farm projects certified really helped to further educate us on what regenerative farming can do. These farms become carbon sequestration capture machines, which is amazing.

“Now we have these two amazing propositions between Regenerative Organic Certification and really bringing a transparent solution for parents to the heavy metal problem that's been plaguing the industry for years,” he says.

It’s an important lesson for others in the organic industry.

“It all comes down to reaching more deeply back into your supply chain,” Harford says. “The closer you can get all the way back to the farms—and in our case, a return of organic certified farms—the more confidence you can have in your supply chain.

“You’ve got to do the hard work and build partnerships so that you can get as close back to the soil and the farms as possible to control everything.”