Yumi Baby Food Reviews

About Yumi Baby Food

By Derek Lakin

HighYa Staff

Published on: Nov 16, 2017

Using ingredients sourced from the best farms, Yumi Baby Food is a weekly subscription service that delivers more than 50 different organic, fresh, superfood-based meal plans directly to your door.

Not only can this keep mealtime yummy and exciting, but the website indicates their intelligently designed meals are developed by pediatricians, nutritionists, and seasoned chefs to provide “the right mix of nutrient-rich ingredients to support your baby’s body and mind.”

In addition to being organic, all of Yumi’s baby foods are also plant-based, low in total sugar, allergen and nut-free (except for coconut), and gluten, soy, and dairy-free. Their packaging is curbside recyclable, the insulation is compostable, and ice packs are reusable.

To get started, all customers have to do is pick a Yumi subscription plan that fits their needs, and then wait for deliveries to arrive each week.

You’re here because you want to know if Yumi’s baby food really can help you—and more importantly, your baby—live your best lives, as claimed on the website. We’ll help you find some research-backed answers, starting with the difference between homemade and store-bought baby food.

What’s Wrong With Store-Bought Baby Food?

You might be thinking, “I was raised on store-bought baby food, and I turned out just fine. So, what's the problem that brands like Yumi promise to solve?”

According to Mona Rifka, MD, a pediatrician at Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital, traditional baby food often contains high levels of sugar and preservatives, while processing can kill nutrients and the packaging isn’t always earth-friendly.

Interviewed for Business Insider, Carina Venter, a registered dietitian at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, adds:

“There is little data available about nutrient profiles for store-bought baby food. It often lacks texture, which can stunt infants’ chewing development; there is little variety in the ingredients, which in early life has been associated with an increased risk of asthma; and the microbial load (the amount of good bacteria) in commercial baby foods is typically much lower than in homemade foods.”

Comparatively, she says that organic foods “have been shown to contribute to a more diverse gut microbiome, which can help prevent allergy development, as well as conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, depression, and anxiety.”

When it comes to Yumi’s baby food, how many different combinations of organic ingredients do they offer?

Taking a Closer Look at Yumi’s Baby Food Plans

Each Yumi Baby Food meal is packaged in a 4.5oz jar and falls between 100 and 200 calories. The foods they contain are sourced from local organic farms, who don’t use GMOs and are made carefully in a certified commercial kitchen in Los Angeles.

After they’re prepared, meals—which are available in 6, 10, or 12 oz servings—are sealed using modified atmospheric packaging (MAP), which the company reports displaces oxygen with inert gasses, thereby ensuring freshness. Then, they’re shipped chilled to your doorstep weekly.

Once received, they should be consumed within one week (a ‘best by’ date is included on each jar), or within 24 hours of opening. If necessary, the FAQ indicates jars can be frozen for up to two months.

Yumi notes that their farm-based menu changes regularly. But to help give you a better idea of the types of foods they specialize in, here’s what they offered at the time of our research:

Yumi Basics

Yumi’s Basics options contain only single-pureed ingredients, such as broccoli above. Image credit: Caer, Inc.

These are advertised a great introduction to solids for babies who are just starting to get used to them.

• Carrot
• Black beans
• Broccoli
• Butternut squash
• White beans

Yumi Baby Food Blends

Yumi’s Chiwa Blend contains several different ingredients, including kiwi, coconut milk, banana, and date. Image credit: Caer, Inc.

Comparatively, these nutrient-packed options feature multiple ingredients and flavors:

• Bell Pepper Soup – Sweet potato, red bell pepper, apple, chard, quinoa
• Chiwa – Kiwi, coconut milk, quinoa, banana, chia seed, date, wheat germ oil
• Cran Squash – Butternut squash, apple, white bean, cranberry, pumpkin seeds
• Pitaya Porridge – White yam, pineapple, dragon fruit, coconut milk, quinoa, banana, chia seed, date, wheat germ oil
• Spirulina Smash – Blueberry, spinach, coconut milk, quinoa, banana, chia seed, date, spirulina, wheat germ oil

Basics and Blends

Yumi Baby Food’s What a Peach contains flavorful ingredients like blackberries, sweet potatoes, and cinnamon. Image credit: Caer, Inc.

These options allow your baby to explore a variety of different jars each week:

• What a Peach – Peaches, coconut milk, blackberries, quinoa, banana, chia seed, date, wheat germ oil, sweet potato, cinnamon
• Japanese Sweet Potato
• Pumpkin Pie – Pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger powder, nutmeg, vanilla extract, flax, apple, coconut milk, arrowroot powder
• Apple
• Blue Yamma – Blueberries, coconut milk, quinoa, chia seeds, banana, dates, wheat germ oil, sweet potato

How Much Does the Yumi Baby Food Delivery Service Cost?

Yumi’s per-week prices, which includes shipping, are as follows:

Basics

• 6 Jars: $35
• 10 Jars: $50
• 12 Jars: $55

Blends

• 6 Jars: $50
• 10 Jars: $70
• 12 Jars: $75

Basics and Blends

• 6 Jars: $45
• 10 Jars: $60
• 12 Jars: $65

Important note: While Yumi claims they’re working to quickly expand, their delivery services are currently only available in California and parts of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah.

All subscriptions are charged weekly, delivered on Tuesdays, and auto-renew unless you pause, skip a week, or cancel at any time by reaching out to customer service at 415-TRY-YUMI (879-9864), support@helloyumi.com, or via their site’s contact form.

If you’re dissatisfied for any reason, the company offers a satisfaction guarantee, as long as you contact support within 24 hours of delivery. According to their terms:

“Depending on the circumstances, and within the sole discretion of Yumi, we will provide a full or partial credit or refund of the purchase price for that Product delivery. Yumi may require either that the Product be returned to Yumi or that You send Yumi photographic images of or other documentation of the basis of Your dissatisfaction with the Product before we process a credit or refund.”

What Do We Know About the Company Behind Yumi Baby Food?

Yumi Baby Food (parent company Caer, Inc.) was launched mid-2017, co-founded by CEO Angela Sutherland and President/CMO Evelyn Rusli.

Previously, Angela worked as a director for Sierra Constellation Partners and technology supervisor for Versus Motors. Evelyn worked as a reporter for news outlets like Forbes, TechCrunch, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Are There Other Organic Baby Food Delivery Services Like Yumi?

According to TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos, at least a dozen subscription-based companies have entered the marketplace over the last couple of years, each of which is looking to take a bite out of the sizable baby food market that’s expected to reach $76 billion by 2021.

Some of the more popular options at the time of our research included:

These are in addition to companies that ship organic ingredients to customers, who must then process them to create baby food, such as Raised Real, Thistle Baby, and Ayesha Curry’s Homemade. How to choose?

Writing for Parents magazine, Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN notes that focusing on foods that use organic ingredients, contain only natural (or none, ideally) preservatives, offer a variety of flavors, and are limited in sugar and salt content. BabyCenter.com also recommends avoiding baby foods that contain modified food starch—all of which are factors that most of the above options meet.

Given this, Bonnie notes that packaging (jars, pouches, frozen packages, etc.) could be a deciding factor, based on “how much room you have for storage, your portability needs, and cost.”

For example, she says that “glass jars are great if you are spoon-feeding your baby or heating up the food,” although they could be dangerous “if you're giving the food to your child to handle.” On the other hand, frozen packages can take up precious freezer space and require defrosting, but they’re often more convenient and the freezing process can help retain nutrients without preservatives.

Pouches are child-friendly if you are handing the feeding over to your older baby,” she says, “but be wary of any contaminants in the plastic packaging.”

Our Final Thoughts About Yumi Baby Food

As a parent, you want the best for your child, so you’re committed to feeding them foods that are as healthy and as natural as possible. But it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that healthy foods are often among the most expensive.

To outline this point, we found Gerber (perhaps the most popular national brand in the U.S.) baby food for as little as $0.56 per jar at the time of our research, compared to Yumi’s lowest-priced option at $4.58—more than eight times the cost.

However, if you’re already buying organic foods and creating your own baby food at home, it certainly seems that delivery services like Yumi (we didn’t test any of their products to provide firsthand feedback) could provide a similar per-meal price, but without all the labor-intensive food processing (washing, cooking, chopping, pureeing, etc.) that’s typically involved. And as parents are all-too-aware, time is precious.

In the end, if you believe that you can’t put a price on the nutrition you provide to your child, Yumi stands behind their baby food with a satisfaction guarantee, so you might not be out much more than time (and potentially return shipping charges) if you give them a try and aren’t satisfied.

Just keep in mind that if you don’t live in California or parts of Nevada, Arizona, or Utah, you’ll have to go with another company until Yumi expands their service area.