everything you want to know about whole kids

our parents wonder when we'll get a real job

So many of our family and friends often told us about how much junk there was in children's snack foods, but also complained that there weren't really any yummy, convenient and healthy alternatives available. We certainly didn't want to give our nieces and nephews unhealthy junk food either. 

We researched the issues and found that most conventional children's snack foods were poor in nutrients and full of unnecessary food additives, preservatives and colourings. Many had high levels of sugar, fat, sodium and were often high in calories.

For many parents, no surprises there!

Also, what we read about the effects of food additives on kids really disturbed us, despite many manufacturers making over-the-top claims suggesting these foods were healthy and actually good for our kids. 

We thought there must be a better and healthier way to make yummy snacks for kids without all the junk. But we also wanted to do things differently. We both worked in corporate roles with big companies (our parents still wonder when we're going to get real jobs) and we were tired of the stress, politics and lack of time for our family and friends. We wanted to create a business that was fun, friendly and cared about what it was doing.

Although we hadn't actually sold anything yet (in fact, we didn't even know which products to make), we had big dreams for our little business.  

We both love organic food – not only is it chock-full of healthy goodness and free from pesticides, chemicals and nasty food additives, but it's also better for the environment.  We looked around and discovered that no one in Australia was making a range of healthy organic snacks for kids to take to school.  Why not be the first?

With all the money we were saving to buy a house, we set up Nourish Foods and manufactured our first run of Whole Kids organic products. Our small rented house in RIchmond was packed full of cartons that we sometimes struggled to find space to have dinner.  With all this stock, we were a little worried as we didn't even have a single customer yet.  

So we packed our bags and set off to the inaugural Organic Expo in Sydney in 2005 to see what would happen. We were still glueing boxes when the truck arrived to pick up all our samples, and we were still glueing things the day before the expo.   

When the expo finally opened, we were both very nervous. We'd spent our life savings and thought no one would even visit our stand. But we made a promise to each other: if we got a great response from people, then we'd toss in our proper jobs and devote all our energy to Whole Kids.

Thankfully, the response was overwhelming. Parents really appreciated what Whole Kids was all about, and kids just loved our yummy snacks. We were over the moon.

And we made true to our promise - we gave up our jobs as soon as we got back to Melbourne. Australia's first range of organic snacks for kids was officially launched.

That’s just the beginning of the Whole Kids adventure. We have some many exciting ideas and plans to help improve the health and nutrition of kids all around Australia.

We hope you and your family enjoy our Whole Kids snacks. Please contact us if you have anything tell us, anything at all. We 'd love to hear from you.

Monica & James

(...and after four years, we still haven't bought a house)