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Lori Karis of Sweet Cheeks Baby Food in St. Paul, Minn.
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The phrase "farm-to-table" conjures up a number of images: fresh, unadulterated veggies being pulled from fertile black soil, austere but delicious dishes made from local meats and produce, and sophisticated diners eating hearty meals created from the just-picked gems of that morning's farmers market.
It does not conjure up a baby with a bunch of a sweet potatoes smeared all over his face.
Yet Lori Karis is expanding the traditional understanding of what "farm-to-table" means for Twin Cities parents. Karis is the proprietor of
Sweet Cheeks Baby Food, a not quite one-year-old St. Paul-based company that turns the gastronomic bounty of Minnesota into meal-sized pouches of nutrition for local babies. Each 2.5-3 oz. meal retails for $1.50-3.00, depending on its size and the age of the baby it’s intended for.
"I've always made baby food for the babies that I've taken care of," says Karis, who has worked as a nanny for 24 years. "One family I worked for had twins, who were about four months old when I started. They were probably the first family that ate similarly to how I do, which is to say organic and locally sourced."
Karis would make frozen meals for the family, who would thaw them out later to feed the twins.
"The parents would come home and make their dinner and they'd say things to me like: 'We don't want to make it look like we eat baby food, but we taste it to make sure it's OK… And it's really good! You should market it!'"
Thus Sweet Cheeks Baby Food was born. Each week, Lori works at a commercial kitchen in West St. Paul to make about 1,000 of the meals. She uses all organic ingredients, and sources locally whenever possible, using no fats, oils, seasonings, meat or dairy products. "It makes it easier for me, and it makes it safer," she says. Fresh, wholesome ingredients drive her process.
"We shoot for peak flavor -- we want to influence a baby to think that organics taste better," she says. "And going through the freezing process, versus jarring -- if you go through a sterilization and pasteurization process to jar food, you kill some of the nutrients, too, and it totally affects the taste. Hopefully by the time parents have tasted the difference, the whole family is eating more local foods and recognizing the difference in the taste."
The taste really shines through, even to an adult palate; a sample of sweet potatoes was bright, pleasantly textured and naturally sweet -- a simple, incredibly wholesome and clean flavor. Organic apples with steel cut oats were similarly mellow and pleasant.
Karis works as a partner with local producers to create her food. Her apples, for example, come from
Hoch Orchard and Garden out of La Crescent, Minn. Other than brown rice, her grains come from
Whole Grain Milling in Welcome, Minn., and much of her produce comes from
Old Orchard Farm in Northfield. Her food miles tend to be in the double digits, as opposed to larger companies which often ship ingredients for hundreds or thousands of miles and then ship food back out for similar distances.
Although Karis uses non-local produce as necessary (especially in the winter months), she buys through Mississippi Market and other co-ops to ensure organic certifications and overall quality are up to her standards. She hopes eventually to be able to work through Carolyn Joyce of Old Orchard Farm on a near-exclusive basis for local produce.
By making small batches of food in response to demand, working with local producers and using organic produce, Karis helps to minimize the environmental footprint of her business. She also packages her food in reusable plastic packaging that can be shipped flat-packed, which is more efficient than much of the rigid packaging available for food products. Future plans include an eventual switch to a corn-based biodegradable package.
In addition to being distributed at Golden's Deli in St. Paul and the St. Paul Farmers' Market, Sweet Cheeks Baby food
crops up at numerous local co-ops and, surprisingly, two prominent local restaurants: 128 Cafe and Birchwood Cafe.
Both have owners with babies and a respect for local food -- the fit was a natural one. It doesn't hurt that the culinary merit of the stuff is self-evident even to -- or especially to -- a trained palate.
"I met Tracy [Singleton] from Birchwood Cafe at an event, where I did a tasting," recalls Karis. "All the other chefs were like: 'Here's sashimi!' and I was like: 'Here's sweet potato mixed with apples and millet! No fats or seasonings!'"
Despite the humble ingredients, the response was positive.
"I had several chefs come over and say 'this tastes really good!'" Karis says. "You really have to work on people to get them to try it when you're doing a tasting at a store -- people say: 'My kids are grown, don't make me eat it!' But I say: 'Just taste the difference between this and what your kids were eating when they were little.'"
"It's just people food for babies!"