The trouble with buying baby food is that the food that’s on offer is generally boring, beige, tasteless, textureless mush. There is such a limited range of flavours available and they don’t really reflect what we expect the child to eat when they start having family meals.

There is no recommendation that this is what babies should eat, but because this is all you can get in the supermarket, this is – understandably – what people think they ought to feed their baby. If I suggest feeding a 9 month old baby a prawn curry, parents nearly fall off their chairs. But there is no reason why you shouldn’t introduce strong flavours to your child, particularly if you eat them yourself. Before the age of 12 months, babies are very open to trying new things and introducing them to as many textures and flavours while they’re in this stage is a great idea. As soon as they start to get independent and learn to say no, they will do it a lot at dinner time! But, children are less likely to refuse foods that they are familiar with so get them familiar with as much as you can.

You have probably noticed that the baby food aisle is not refrigerated. That is because the food has been ultra-heat treated so can remain at room temperature without spoiling, but there is a cost for this convenience. Some nutrients are damaged by the high temperatures involved in this processing, a problem you don’t get as much when you cook at home.

So, recently I have been lucky enough to work with a start-up social enterprise that will raise money to provide training and employment opportunities for women who have faced domestic abuse, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. The enterprise wanted to launch their own baby food range and we had a unique opportunity to address these problems in the market. They address the problems with texture by not pureeing everything to within an inch of its life; they have flavours from around the world; and they are producing a chilled range for reheating (or freezing) at home.

Tiny Diner have bravely taken on the challenge of trying to do something different and important in a very established market and now they need help raising money to get their first products on the shelves. Please have a look at their Crowdfunder page and support them however you can by donating money or even just sharing it with people (everyone!) you know.