Making Baby Food so Healthy and Tasty, it Will Make any Meal Time the Highlight of Your Child’s Day
Providing Hawai‘i’s only local growing and manufacturing business for baby food, Piko Provisions sets out to cultivate a link between our ‘āina and future generations all while serving up a nutritious and toxin free snack for young ones. “The name Piko was given by the late Uncle Pono Shim and our advisory board for its deep meanings and implications in Hawaiian culture”, shared Ethan West owner and co-founder of Piko Provisions. “I am not Native Hawaiian myself, so I can not share the meaning of Piko but I will share my relationship to it and evolving understanding of it. My first introduction to Piko was from Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell (video available here).
The inspiration for the company started with Wests’ agriculture filled youth. “I grew up on a small farm in central Maine, it was an organic dairy and produce farm. My family took care of the farm, we practiced regenerative agriculture,” described West.
Regenerative agriculture is a holistic approach to farming, aiming to help restore the sustainability of the entire ecosystem along with the farm. Believing greatly in this approach, it is applied everyday by West and his team of farmers to grow and produce the company’s baby food.
Another huge inspiration for the company came at the realization that current marketed baby food wasn’t the safest. The Healthy Babies’ Bright Futures’ 2019 study found that 95% of baby food contained at least 1 of 4 toxic metals- lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury in alarmingly high concentrations.
With the birth of Piko Provisions, West realized that he could provide toxin-free baby food and help to reintroduce culturally significant crops into the first foods for children. “It’s hypoallergenic, and super nutrient dense. So even if your baby has allergies, they can jam on some poi” exclaimed West.
Currently, Piko Provisions sells three different baby purees. Okinawan Sweet Potato Banana and Taro, and Kabocha Pineapple and Breadfruit just received double purity awards from The Clean Label Project, which is a global nonprofit that helps by testing food products for over 300 environmental toxins, pesticides, plasticizers and more. To learn more, stop by their website at www.pikoprovisions.com.
Piko Provisions’ nutritious and clean baby food can be found at 7-11, Whole Foods, Foodland, Times Supermarkets, Farm Link Hawaii, and other grocery stores across the island.
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