Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The Herts-based organic babyfood company Daisy Ltd is set for growth following investment from the CREATE East of England Fund.

Daisy Ltd is the UK’s leading provider of gourmet organic frozen foods for babies from four months old.

The company’s ‘Fresh Daisy’ products, currently produced at the Otley Food Skills Centre near Ipswich, are already available from selected Sainsbury and Asda stores including, in the East of England, Grantham Asda and Sainsbury’s in St Albans and Luton (Bramingham Park).

The CREATE investment is supporting expansion into other major supermarkets including, from recently, the Tesco Extra stores in Cambridge (Bar Hill), Peterborough and Milton Keynes (Kingston).

As part of the investment, a member of the CREATE team, the venture capitalists managing the CREATE East of England Fund, has joined the Fresh Daisy board as a non-executive director.

Boyd Mulvey, CEO of CREATE said: “Daisy is an exciting company offering a first class product and we are delighted to be supporting its expansion.

“Having sampled Fresh Daisy foods myself I can confidently say that Daisy’s growth is good news for babies everywhere.

“Sealed in plastic containers, the products are totally safe and they taste great too!”

Local farmers also stand to benefit as Fresh Daisy sources most of the fruit and vegetables for its products through East Anglian farming co-operative Eostre Organics.

Founder of Daisy Ltd, Ipswich-born Gerrie Hawes, said: “We are delighted to be supported by CREATE, who are based in East Anglia, as Fresh Daisy has an active policy of investment, where possible, into the East Anglia region.

“This funding gives us the opportunity to continue revolutionising the quality of babyfood by being the only organic babyfood in the babyfood aisle freezers of Sainsburys, Asda and Tesco stores.”

Fresh Daisy was voted UK’s Best Organic Babyfood by winning the Soil Association’s Organic Food Awards 2003 and is a finalist for the forthcoming Vegetarian Society Babyfood of the Year Award.

The brand, whose customers include supermodel mum Claudia Schiffer, has surprised many parents about how good babyfood can taste, including celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson who says that “Fresh Daisy is so good it makes you want to be a baby again!”